Dateline: January 18, 2009-5:05am
We arrive at our friend John Ey's to load his photo gear into the car. We have 90 minutes of driving to get to where the cranes are sleeping. It's a fairly warm night (56˚) and the stars are shining brightly. He told us rumours that 10,000 Sand hill Cranes migrate to Wilcox every year and we wanted to shoot them . . . with our Canons. Our directions lead us to Wilcox Playa, an 8 mile wide by 10 mile long grassy basin just south of Wilcox. I keep checking the temperature outside and it's dropping slowly (48˚ just outside of Benson, 43˚ in Wilcox as we stop for the latrine). But when we arrive at the Fish & Game Wildlife Area 15 miles from town, the temperature dropped dramatically to 23˚. Where the hell are we? It never got below 40˚ until we stopped the car.
The noise outside the car was indescribable. I could tell that the cranes were close. It was all you could hear. I figured that they were maybe a mile away. We grabbed the gear and began the hike toward the "noise". It was dawn. The sun would be up in 40 minutes and the cranes would be on their way to find food. We need to get to a good vantage point. The first 1/4 mile was on a dirt road that lead us through a wooded area that opened into the playa. We could see two school buses another 1/4 mile away and the tour group was 1/4 mile beyond that, and the cranes were more than a mile beyond that! The golden grasses turned into a sea of grey Sand hill Cranes for as far as the eye could see. Amazing! They were starting to leave in varying sized flocks from the area where they had been sleeping. It was still too dark to shoot and obtain a good exposure. We set up to start shooting. The tripods are as cold as the air temperature that I think has dropped even more. John has gloves .
. . he's done this before. Lori and I don't and just put up with the cold. As the sun begins to rise, more cranes begin to fly overhead. The shutters are clicking now.
The sunrise was colorful and made for great color. We shoot for 2 hours before heading back to the car. The high cirrus clouds against the deep blue sky made for spectacular images.
Off to White Water Draw some 30 miles south. We arrive there around noon and found the cranes daytime hiding spot. We were able to get much closer this time and view the cranes milling around in ankle deep water.
There must have been over 10,000 cranes there with more arriving by the minute. Up go the tripods. The sound of the shutters can't be heard over the honking of these magnificent birds. We shot until 5:00pm. Picked up our gear, jumped into the car and headed home. It had been a great day for photography. I shot 500 images and Lori another 150. We dropped John off at his home at 7:07pm. A long day, yes, but I still need to get the photos up on the web site before I go to bed. Why?
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