Shall We Dance - Crane Magic

I had a very exciting morning today! I saw these two sand hill cranes and passed them on the way home this morning, thought to myself; 'turn around ... go back ... the lighting is perfect' so I did. I changed my lens to the medium lens I brought as I thought to myself, ‘why didn’t you bring your zoom lens, darn you’ then pulled up slowly and parked on the side of the road.

Four of us went out this morning, we met at 7:30am just a few miles away about 10 minutes from the house. We took pictures of two barns before work this morning, and I also took pictures of this little swinging bench seat built and secured in an arbor. I had seen that there last time I drove past and wanted to see if Clayton would be able to build us one. Then on the way home this is what I saw. The barns were nothing compared to these, that is for sure!

Laurie and I had just been discussing my video capability in my camera; I could just kick myself in the butt right now. Because I just got so excited about seeing the way this guy was jumping up and down and he did this repeatedly even, and I didn’t video tape it!!!!!

I've concluded, after several other people mentioning this, that this would be what they call the ritual mating dance of the Sand Hill Crane!
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Beautiful; it was just incredibly beautiful to watch. I've posted a slide show as well if anyone wants to see 45 pictures flash by and watch as he dances away; you can almost hear the music play while you watch .... This first image make me feel like he's singing an Opera

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Still want to see more? ok, click here to see the slideshow of about half of what I took

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Enjoy!