Black Necked Crane - Endangered Bird

[Hymakar Valluru]

Black-necked Crane clicked at Tsokar Lake in Ladhak Region in Sep'13.

It was quite an effort to click this bird with a 400 mm focal length.

I had to walk in the marsh land with almost 1 to 1.5 feet deep water, water was freezing cold and my feet had almost become numb after walking 100 mtrs. Could not walk with shoes on as they would get damaged walked almost a KM.

Had to go in a direction so as to avoid disturbing the bird, a life time experience.


EXIF Details:

Canon 60D
F/5.6
1/2000
ISO 400

Cropped around 60% to 70% of the image. hence looks bit grainy

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting of this rare species. Surely it would have been quite an experience to walk a kilometer in freezing water. You effort has paid off. Were they in good numbers? Thanks for sharing.

[Hymakar Valluru]

I have seen probably 5 to6 of them and i believe there are less than 100 in India and most of them are in China and in total a population of close to 9000 across the world.

[Rajan Kanagasabai]

Must have been some experience stalking this bird on foot and in the slush.

Good record shot under such trying circumstances and nice documentation of one of the rare species of the country.

Thanks for sharing

Rajan

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice record. One needs a long focal length plus mud crawling skills. :) The many layered background looks nice. A narrow aperture would have been nice. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi