A lighting effect I almost never get on a raptor. Or any other bird for that matter.
1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
This is an older photo of a young Prairie Falcon along the causeway to Antelope Island. It was early morning and when I first got the bird in my viewfinder it was completely in the shadow cast by the raised causeway road so I had to wait for the light to reach the falcon and hope it didn’t take off in the meantime. Thankfully the early morning December cold made the bird less prone to fly so I got the shots I was after. Here at least some of the light has reached the entire bird except for its tail and wingtips.
I like the spotlight effect on the falcon with shadow below it and the relatively dark water of the Great Salt Lake in the background. Long ago I posted another photo of this bird taken from a different position that placed the abrupt shadow boundary in the lower background in a different position behind and below the falcon’s neck. I didn’t appreciate that shadow boundary intersecting the bird so I like this photo better.
To be honest I thought I’d already posted this shot but I was wrong. Perhaps it was one of the thumbnails in the rotating banner I used to have at the top of my blog.
Ron
Addendum on a completely unrelated matter:
I’m the cook around here and last night pork chops and ham fried rice were on the menu. I like to think of myself as a more than competent cook but last night I made the worst cooking mistake of my life and I’ve made a few.
I used Worcestershire sauce (3 Tablespoons of the damn stuff) instead of soy sauce in the fried rice! Didn’t notice my mistake until I was ready to serve so we tried to eat it anyway. Still can’t get that taste out of my mouth. I don’t know WHY they put both dark sauces that look very similar in bottles of almost the same shape (Kikkoman and Lea and Perrins).
I’d feel a little better about my stupid mistake if any readers have a similar story. Misery does love company…
Beautiful falcon!
Have done the salt-for-sugar (and vice versa) switch more than once. Also left out the sugar in a pumpkin pie I made for a Thanksgiving dinner party. My first cooking disaster was at 4 when I added 3 cans of water to Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle because that’s what I did to make the orange juice. My dad and I were on our own for lunch and I wanted to cook for him. He supervised the stove usage, but mistakenly thought I would read the instructions on the can. It was horrible, but Dad (the science teacher) ate it, bless him — neither one of us thought about adding another can or two of soup to change the concentration of the solution. 😱🤪😂
Wow, you started ‘cooking’ early, Marty. Don’t think my mom would let me anywhere near the stove at that age.
I was heavily supervised, but got to kneel on the chair part of the yellow step stool and stir — both up in the mountains with my folks, in the camp kitchen (had my own stool there), and at my grandmother’s apartment in Beverly Hills (I stirred the pat au choux with two hands while she held the pot when she made eclairs). This was also the 60s and we played with lawn darts…
Mom was a nurse and she’d seen too many badly burned little kids from stove accidents. She made it crystal clear that I’d never have a motorcycle for much the same reason. On the other hand looking back I’m surprised about some of the potentially dangerous stuff she let me do.
Interestingly, my mom (who was much more over-protectively cautious with me than my dad) had me helping in the kitchen at a very early age — even with knives. I think that in her mind, teaching me some skills and a healthy respect for “fire” and “sharp” was her way of keeping me safe. She certainly didn’t let me do a lot of pretty innocuous things that other children were doing because she was afraid I’d get hurt. (I seriously doubt that she knew I had lawn dart experience. 😈😎)
On Friday night I grabbed a pack of what I thought was my Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch to thicken my crock pot of beef stew. You can imagine my surprise when it started to fizz and bubble up! (It’s a bad habit of mine to thicken right in the pot rather than add the thickener to a liquid first.) I had mistaken the potato starch for a same size package of Bob’s Red Mill Baking Powder!! Both are in identical lavender edged packaging.
Great photo of the prairie falcon.
I hope it was still edible, Linda!
It was edible but tasted acidic and a bit funky. My husband thought it was great over boiled potatoes! Cheers!
Outstanding falcon in perfect light. I’ve certainly made my share of cooking mistakes. One that comes go mind is being in too much of a hurry. I was quickly fixing a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and was in too much of a hurry to see the paper between the two slices of cheese. I settled for tuna instead as I headed out the door.. But a friend made a much greater mistake to share with all of us at a potluck. When we all took a bite of spice cake we were all trying to be polite but not eat any more. When she finally took a bite she realized that she has mistakenly grabbed cayenne instead of cinnamon.
Holy moly, Dan – that story is going to be a hard one to beat. A little cayenne goes a long way. A very long way!
That gorgeous prairie deserves to be in the spotlight—a true beauty! The light and background do “her” justice!
The cooking disaster that is still memorable, nearly 35 yrs later: a cup of salt instead of sugar in the pumpkin cheesecake I was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Didn’t realize my error until I dipped a finger into the batter after all other ingredients were added. That was an expensive dessert (fortunately, store was open so I could buy new ingredients)!
Dang, bet that much salt really made you pucker up, Chris! Yeah, that would bel a lot of cream cheese to have to just throw away.
That is a beautiful photo.The light is exquisite. I have not seen the prairie falcon out that way for a long time now. For years one was a constant along the causeway.
I miss opportunities like this. I think I am in a photography funk. I go out in locations and after driving hours I am not finding birds or animals to photograph. I have returning to mostly hiking and maybe I will get lucky and get a nice shot of something. I do get tired of backpacking the weight of my camera and often never using it, but it never fails the hikes I decide not to take my camera are the days I had a great chance to use it.
I’m glad you like it, April.
I’m having the same experience as you with birds lately. They’re almost nonexistent. This morning was another example of that.
This bird is a hard one for me to photograph where I live in Northern California. It is always a surprise and generally flying right over my head so I love this photo! A resting Prairie with that quality of light, just beautiful. I have not seen that amount of light brown color on one either. Thanks for all your blogs and the narrative is always informative, and sometimes funny!
Thank you, Marisela. I think the golden light that early in the morning affected the bird’s color.
Don’t feel too bad, I put white flour in my cornbread instead of cornmeal.
Nope, that wouldn’t work without at least some cornmeal.
The Prairie Falcon is a cheerful spot of sunshine on yet another gray and rainy morning here.
Worst cooking mistake in memory (not mine, but could have been, since we were buying from bulk bins then): making cheese cake and, instead of vanilla, adding soy sauce.
Lyle, I dearly wish we had some of your moisture.
Ha, I have an excellent recent personal reference suggesting what your cheese cake tasted like.
Lovely photograph !
OK– here’s mine : I sprinkled a heavy layer of CUMIN into my oatmeal
cereal, mistaking it ( in a clear glass container ) for cinnamon ! Tried it,
anyway, just to see how awful it was, but it really wasn’t because the
cumin was old and had lost a lot of its pizazz–so I ate all of the oatmeal
anyway and replaced the cumin with fresh !
Kris, if you ask me oatmeal could only be improved by cumin. I think oatmeal at its best tastes like and has the same consistency as glue. Give me whole wheat ‘mush’ any ol’ day… 🙂
Beautiful Imagery Ron.
Thank you, John.
Ron,
Yes! Last year I was in a hurry and grabbed a carton of “milk” to add to my butternut squash soup. Turns out it was sweet coconut milk and not cow’s milk! The soup was not salvageable. Live and learn.
Tom
Yup, coconut milk would make a difference for sure!
Wonderful photo Ron. Had I taken it it would probably be framed. Really like it a lot. Perfect combination of sunrise and cold gray morning background. That would have been a heart breaker if it had taken off while you waited for the light.
No cooking mishaps from me – Margaret is the chef. Only things I make are coffee and sandwiches.
Thanks, Everett. Maybe I should stick to coffee and sandwiches too.
Beautiful! Love the warm light on the bird against the “cold”, dark background that DOES seem to indicate it was cold out that morning….. 🙂
Thanks, Judy.
It’s gorgeous. Reminds me of “the Golden hour” a photographer told me about. It’s when the best light is available for portraits. Is that true with nature photography as well?
Yes, it often is Arwen. Although I’m not a huge fan of photos of black and white birds taken in golden light. Landscape photographers also love the golden hour.
Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. 🙂 maybe this falcon knew it as well. Lol