Photo of the Day: Sandhill Crane

This photo featuring a sandhill crane chick and its mother, beak to beak, was taken in Melbourne, Florida. The mother had nested in a small pond in an industrial area, says Ursula Dubrick, who spent weeks observing and photographing the nest, unsure when the chick would hatch. Since Dubrick lived nearby, she visited the pond twice a day, spending several hours each time. One morning she noticed a small hole in the egg; the chick emerged later that day. Dubrick continued to photograph the cranes in the days that followed, observing the parents as they took the chick for walks away from the nest. One cold morning, when the chick was four days old, the mother was keeping it warm in her feathers. Dubrick was there to the capture the moment when the chick emerged and locked eyes with its mother. “It turned out to be a very precious photo,” says Dubrick, “and one of my favorite images.”

This image was a Top 100 photo from the 2013 Audubon Magazine Photography Awards. To see all of the photos, click here.