ML25116471

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Media notes

Common Crane, southeast of Brownfield, Terry County, Texas, 28 February 2016.

Observation details

One - possibly two - Common Crane(s) in the field just northwest of the intersection of Highway 168 and FM 1076 - best viewed from FM 1076. First located by Melissa Roach, then seen by Tom Johnson, Yinan Li, Xijun Chen, Anthony Hewetson, and Jay Lehman. My two best (admittedly horrible) photographs are provided below - the bird is encircled in red. In both photographs the black throat/anterior neck and dark cap - creating the image of a neck with white side stripes - can be made out. In one of the photographs the yellowish bill can be made out. During observations, this bird was notably taller than most of the other cranes and - with the best scopes available, the black forehead, red cap, black nape could be discerned. At one point a bird well to the right in the flock moved to the back of the flock and a bird well to the left from this point moved into the foreground. We could not be sure if these were different birds or if one bird had moved without any of us noticing it. The latter seemed unlikely, given the six sets of eyes glued to these cranes, and the feeling was that there might well have been two birds present. If so both were in adult plumage. One to three Common Cranes have been in this vicinity for most of the month, with the first report coming from the Lynn County side of Mound Lake on 7 February 2016 (Justin Bosler).

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

ISO

80

Focal length

215 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/6.5

Shutter speed

1/320 sec

Dimensions

4000 pixels x 3000 pixels

Original file size

1.41 MB