When we first snuck into the blind, it was mostly dark, and most of the cranes were still asleep. We thought we saw something white in the sea of gray, but we had to wait until the light got a little stronger before we were sure of what we were seeing. The other two photographers with me had lenses longer than my arm. This shot was taken with my puny little 18-300mm lens and then cropped liberally to make the whooper look bigger than a little white dot.