Steven Bourelle Digital Arts

This last spring my wife Lynne and I took a cross country road trip from our home in Wisconsin to my last home in California. On the way back we stopped for a couple days in South Dakota. Our first full day there was spent visiting Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park.

Custer State Park is an amazing place. The wildlife there are very unafraid of people. Bison roam in front of cabins and block traffic along the road. Pronghorn stand within feet of the main roads. And then there were the six Big Horn Sheep camped out on the front lawn of the lodge. This guy was one of the six, he stood there posing for me while took pictures from the truck.

Luckily he was standing where I could get a good shot of him without getting the parking lot behind him in the frame. It’s quite a thrill to be that close to a wild animal and have him not be afraid of you.

Technical Details:
Canon Digital Rebel XTI
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
ISO 100
f/5.6 @ 1/500 sec.
Hand held with Image Stabilization turned on.

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The White-naped Crane is native to Asia. They breed in northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China, and adjacent areas of southeastern Russia. Around 2000 birds migrate south for winter through the Korean peninsula, most of them ending up on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

There are from 4900-5300 White-naped Cranes in the world and their population is declining.

This White-naped Crane was photographed in Baraboo WI of all places. It lives at the International Crane Foundation with it’s mate. They are one of the breeding pairs at the ICF.

The ICF works world wide to conserve cranes and the grasslands and wetlands they depend on. They are also a leader in captive breading of cranes and work to re-release the birds back into the wild.

We visited the ICF recently and captured some great images of these magnificent birds. This is the only place in the world where you can see all 15 crane species at one time.

This image was taken with my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. I had to shoot through a fence to get the shot. By standing close to the fence and shooting with a large aperture, I was able to make the wires of the fence disappear.

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