Our friends Sam and Val had told us about a migration that happens every winter up in Tennessee last year, and this year Jeremy and I decided to join them. We set out early morning and drove about 3 hours north of here. I was geeking out about the sunrise, much to the amusement of everyone in the car. Yes, I’m that lazy that I never see a sunrise.
Whenever I do engagement sessions, I ask the couple to get up really early. I usually feel bad about it but the natural light that presents itself is worth losing the couple hours of sleep over. These horses just glowed in this light. And I took this photo while we drove by in a car. That’s how great morning light is!
Unfortunately once we arrive to the pier where the boat tour would have taken off, we were informed that the ice was too thick to break through and that the boat wouldn’t be going anywhere.
NOOOO. As a southerner I hadn’t even considered that there would be thick ice much less ice so thick it meant we went nowhere.
Two good things happened though. One, I got to play with three inches of ice. Two, we met this sweet old country dog named Bear who stopped in for pets and backscratches ( and a portrait! ).
We chose to drive around instead and we found ourselves with much closer experiences with the Sandhill cranes than we expected (or would have gotten on that day cruise). They were strewn across fields, scattered among cows, and flying overhead every few minutes.
And then we hit the motherlode of bird congregation. We had spotted them while passing over this bridge earlier in the day. Parking off to the left side of the bridge, we hoofed it to the middle and I was granted the opportunity to shoot these!
Just look how many there are!
It was totally worth the disappointment and detour. And I caught a Bald Eagle in flight.. our national bird!
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