To be fair, the photography opportunities are not that straightforward in Spain. Like geese, the cranes fly from and to their overnight lakeside roosts in the dim twilight, often at exposures and shutter speeds slow enough to defy even the most avant-garde snapper. When feeding in large open fields, there is no easy way to approach them over the ground and little cover nearby to accommodate a portable hide, even if I knew who (or how) to ask permission. I content myself with taking flock shots and groups of birds in the landscape, hoping for the thin veil of mist to lift and waiting patiently for flights in and out. During the day, the super-flock gradually fragments and smaller parties of cranes disperse - some to feed in maize or rice stubbles, others to forage for the acorns of holm oaks in the 'dehesa' nearby, as they have done for centuries. They seem to become more nervous in smaller groups, and while I am able to snatch the odd shot from the vehicle window it isn’t the ideal way to get intimate, close portraits.
Six weeks later, I make a rendezvous with the very same birds nearly 3000km to the north (as the crane flies), at Hornborgasjön in southern Sweden. Here, the arrival of the cranes towards the end of March is traditionally celebrated as the first sign of spring after the long northern winter. Hazel catkins and coltsfoot flowers reinforce the impression. There is even a dedicated 'Crane Dance Centre' at the south end of this vast eutrophic lake with its marshy fringes - the product of an eminently successful habitat rehabilitation scheme, and now recognised as one of Europe’s premier wetlands. A programme of supplementary feeding encourages the birds to congregate at the same place each year, and the Swedish people turn out in their thousands to appreciate the spectacle. Indeed, the human visitors outnumber the birds by a significant factor (up to 10,000 cranes each spring, compared with at least 150,000 tourists over the same four-week period).
Now the cranes are hormonally charged in readiness for their breeding season, and the flock is bustling with activity as various pairs of birds perform their energetic courtship dances and seem to infect their close neighbours with the same urge. Ornamental wing plumes erect, and necks elongated skywards, the adult cranes intermittently blast their trumpet calls and perform their parade-marches like goose-stepping infantry. The juvenile birds are no longer in close proximity to their parents, but pushed to the fringes of the main arena and excluded from the sexual circus. A few late wintering whooper swans are mere spectators, upstaged by the real stars of the show.
