~Pixelsmithy's photostream  

Found this at a thrift store and thought it was a crack-up:
"She Was His Until His Guns Gave Out"
Copyright 1940 & 1951
This "Popular Library Edition" was published April 1952

Given my work proximity to yesterday's reported location, I decide to try to find a Whooper over my lunch hour today. I've never seen one.

Would you believe that I drove right to it? Yay!
Taken from my car south of Alda, Nebraska.

Taken with a Pentax K-x, SMC K 200mm f2.5 and a Pentax-F 1.7x AF Adapter.

More than one birder on the NE Birds list has suggested that this is "a Sandhill Crane with some odd form of melanism or (more likely) has oiled underparts."

This fellow stood out in his crowd, and I don't recall seeing a Sandhill Crane with a black body before. It is molting? An immature one? A different species?

This is a crop and was taken with a teleconverter, so apologies for the softness.

Took a chance today (last day before a big wet winter storm moves into the area) and got there before the sun set. Got out of my car and went into a ditch right near the lamp post where our Arctic friend has been landing. I was hidden except for my camera lens sitting on the concrete culvert top edge, the sun's setting light behind me.

He came in right on time, just about 5 or 10 minutes after sunset. I got a number of pictures similar to Pic 3 before he got nervous about me and took off.

These were all taken with available light, with a Pentax K-x and a SMC K 200mm f2.5. Only a bit of Picasa post-processing was done (you can see my dirty sensor spots in the sky) and I just wanted to get these up quickly. Working with the RAW files I may be able to make some improvements.

Thanks for looking!