My opinion: The best photos of Sandhills show their awkward landing methods. Unfortunately, at Big Marsh the birds generally land so far from the viewing area that, at best, you get pictures like this, at least with any lens I'm willing to purchase.

On Saturday, the birds arrived so late in the day that even that wasn't realistic; things were getting far too dark at ground level for a hand-held capture at any distance. But these overhead pics in the setting sunlight came out just fine.