Whoopers in Flight

Another guest post, this time from Ken Bushman in Saskatchewan, who had the amazing luck to photograph a group of wild whooping cranes in flight. This is not something you see everyday.

I showed this photo to the head of the Whooping Crane Breeding Program at the Calgary Zoo, and he said he’s never seen a photo like this. He suggested they might be a group of juvenile cranes on their first migration. Most whooping cranes travel in small family groups of 3 or 4 birds, so this is really an extraordinary photograph.

Ken says “they were flying about five miles east of Little Manitou Lake, near Watrous where I live. It was pretty cool, I was looking for Mule Deer, it was a very windy day, when I heard them. For some reason they circled above me about three times. By the time I got the camera out, I had about thirty seconds of shooting. I got four or five nice pictures, then they kind of caught the wind and drifted off towards Last Mountain Lake, which is about twenty miles away.”