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Sandhill Crane
Grus canadensis
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- Grus - Latin from Proto-Indo-European *gerə- (“to cry hoarsely”). Cognate to English crane. Cranes are ancient creatures. Apparently so is their name.
Back from my another trip. I've been on a serious John Muir reading spree lately...Such an inspiration.
Muir saw the great central valley before it became California's breadbasket. On his first hike to Yosemite, he crossed Pacheco Pass, and across the valley to the foothills of Yosemite and then to the High Sierras the same route we take today on Highway 152 and 99, Muir saw the valley when it was one of the world's great meadows. Instead of a rainforest with trees reaching desperately for sunlight, it was a flower-forest and all the flowers competed for discovery by the bees...Muir was most curious about bees and did several experiments to see how they returned to a nectar or honey source. Ecologist that Muir was, when he discovered this incredible California garden he amusingly referred to it as "bee pastures".
From Bee Pastures - in The Mountains of California by John Muir
The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May was one smooth, continous bed of honey bloom, so marvelously rich that, in walking from the end of it to the other, a distance of more than four hundred miles, your foot would press about a hundred flowers at every step....Sauntering in any direction, hundreds of these happy sunplants brushed against my feet at every step, and closed over them as if I were wading in liquid gold. The air was sweet with fragrance, the larks sang their blessed songs, rising on the wing as I advanced, then sinking out of sight in the polleny sod, while myriads of wild bees stirred the lower air with their monotonous hum - monotonous, yet forever fresh and sweet as every-day sunshine. Hares and spermophiles (california ground squirrels) showed themselves in considerable numbers in shallow places, and small bands of antelopes were almost constantly in sight, gazing curiously from some slight elevation, and then bounding swiftly away with unrivaled grace of motion. Yet I could discover no crushed flowers to mark their track, nor, indeed any destructive action of any wild foot or tooth whatever.
The great yellow days circled by uncounted while I drifted toward the north, observing the countless forms of life thronging about me, lying down almost anywhere on the approach of night. And what glorious botanical beds I had! Oftentimes on awaking I would find several new species leaning over me and looking me full in the face, so that my studies would begin before rising.
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Focal length: 500 mm
fStop: 7
ISO: 800
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec.
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Loyalton, CA - Marble Hot Springs Road
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Jun 1, 2009
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