Nashville Area - Sandhill Crane Trip

[SCraig]

On Friday, December 6, 2013 I'm headed for east Tennessee to meet SM4HIM and photograph some of the Sandhill Cranes that migrate south to the Hiwassee National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is closed during the winter months and visitors are only allowed at a viewing pavilion at one of the visitor's centers. Their web site states that in 2010 there were approximately 50,000 of them on the refuge. We went last year in February and most of the birds had already headed back north again but there were still several hundred (several thousand? I don't really know) still around and it was truly an amazing site. The pavilion is about 125 meters from the water so it's a long stretch even for a long lens but the birds do frequently fly directly overhead to land at the lake and are relatively low when they do. I'll have my 150-500 (Nikon mount) so folks can use it some if they want.

If anyone in the area wants to tag along they are more than welcome to do so. Be aware that I'm leaving EARLY on Friday morning. It's about 3 hours to get there and the time change at Chattanooga means it's 4 hours on the clock. I want to get there about 8:00am so I'm planning on hitting I-24 east about 4:00am. The refuge is south of Dayton, TN so I'm going through Chattanooga and then up I-75 to Cleveland and over to Dayton. GPS coordinates at the site are: N35.39998 W84.98995 so if anyone wants to meet us there by all means feel free to do so.

The pavilion is covered so I'm going rain, snow, or sun.