Sandhill Crane At Battle Road Trail, Concord MA

   

      I received a tip about a Sandhill crane on April 8th, from my photographer friend Harold Wilion. I had nothing better to shoot, and I had never seen a sandhill crane (or any crane) in my life, so I decided to go for it. After getting lost on my way to concord, I finally found a place to park and headed up the trail. The battle road trail is a popular walking place and has historic significance, because a battle took place there during the revolutionary war. I walked to the area Harold had told me about and scanned all the fields nearby. I did not see anything. I scanned all of the nearby cornfields for any speck of red and white. Nothing. I spotted a wetland area off in the distance, and I knew from YouTube videos that that was the preferred hunting habitat of the cranes, so I walked down a hedgerow to the wet area, and scanned the distance for any crane-like figures. Nothing. Then I saw a head pop up. The crane was only about 20 to 30 feet away, staring right at me. I couldnt believe it. Careful not to scare it, I slowly unzipped my camera pack, and picked up my camera. The crane was clearly uncomfortable, so I crouched as low as i could get my body, and It resumed its search for food.

It then kept feeding for about the next half hour, searching the grass as it wandered further and further away. I decided to 

I then left to go to work, and returned in the evening. I snuck back up to the spot I had originally seen it at, and it was back! This time I was prepared, and was able to hide much better.

The crane would keep its head down, feeding, and then every maybe 20 seconds would breifly shoot it's head up to check for predators, and to make sure I was still at comfortable distance away. The crane clearly got comfortable with my presence and eventually would only pop its head up about once per minute, and much lower.

Sandhill cranes are opportunistic hunters, but mainly feed on invertibrates, snakes, and frogs. I did not get any pictures of the crane with food, but I did noticed some head movements that looked like it was eating something. At one point, I noticed 2 deer (possibly a doe with her fawn from the previous year) emerging from the cattails. They seemed oblivious to the fact that I was there, Until I stood up to take better photos, and they bounded back into the reeds.

                                          The crane didnt seem to notice the deer at all.

After awhile, The crane started walking towards me, and I watched as it it turned, and walked into a shorter cut, greener corn field...

By this point, the lighting was getting worse, and I packed up my gear and left. As I got back to the trail, I noticed something passing over my head. A great blue heron? nope. It was the sandhill crane.

I carefully watched as it landed in a distant field. Another green corn field. I took pictures there for only a minute, because it had gotten much darker, and I wasn't totally sure whether or not I was on private property.

When I got back to the parking lot, the sun had set, but I could still barely make out a few deer across the road, watching me cautiously from the wetland. A great way to end my day of photography.