Midnight cranes
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The Crane is a bird that migrates from Northern and Central Europe to winter in Portugal.
The few thousands that get here, will settle year after year in the same places in the Alentejo region.
For several reasons, this is a species to which we have paid a lot of attention.
These shy birds that gather to roost, usually in dams or ponds, will use in one of the areas in
Portugal, a specific craggy river.
Because we like to photograph cranes, because it's hard to get close to them,
because we like to take pictures with moon light and because we would like to document
this unusual situation, we decided to make these images.
The location was visited during the day, and we memorized the path that we would walk through during the night.
Then we waited for night to fall, when the cranes arrived in noisy flocks to roost along the river.
Lit only by the full moon, we walked in silence to the chosen balcony over the river,
taking great care in order not to disturb the cranes.
Besides the roost itself, this pictures also capture the moments when were flocks arriving or leaving these places.
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