SNAPSHOT
In the spring of 2019, Jacelyn Bronte of Bozeman spotted a pair of nesting sandhill cranes at a wetland just north of town. She visited the birds regularly for the next few weeks. After the pair hatched two eggs, Bronte says she spent “hours and hours” photographing the family from about 20 yards away with a 200–500 mm telephoto lens. Known as “colts,” sandhill chicks often climb up onto a resting parent to stay warm in the feathers. “What I like about this shot is the relationship between the mom and the colt. It was just the second day after hatching, and already it could climb right up there,” says Bronte, who works as a clinical psychologist when she’s not photographing wildlife. Bronte lost track of the family after it moved to denser cattail stands to avoid dogs and walkers using a nearby trail. “But then a month later I heard from a National Geographic videographer who’d been filming them that both colts were still alive,” she says. n 6 | MAY–JUNE 2020 | FWP.MT.GOV/MTOUTDOORS
