I fully expected to be skunked by the lack of birds or poor light or both but this trip to Antelope Island was a little better than I anticipated. We actually had good light until near the end of the morning and we found a few interesting critters.
Six images, six species.
None of these photos is an award-winner but for disparate reasons each one grabs me just a little and I’ll mention why in this post. All of them were taken in the last several weeks.
It’s difficult to get some folks excited about Horned Larks but when things go right I’m not one of them.
Horned Larks are ground dwelling birds that rarely perch more than a few inches off the ground.
Yesterday morning this curlew gave me a lesson on what “opportunistic foraging” really means.
Action shots of small birds are difficult to pull off well, partly because they’re so incredibly fast
This is only a novelty shot but it fits my situation.
Horned Larks are one of the most common and widespread bird species on earth but I don’t believe they get the respect they deserve.
I have to constantly remind myself that just because a particular bird is common doesn’t mean that it isn’t a worthy photo subject. I seldom post images of species like House Finches, American Coots and Horned Larks simply because they’re ubiquitous and that’s my shortcoming, not theirs.
Four days ago I had a particularly interesting morning on Antelope Island and thought readers might enjoy a chronological reporting of my experience. Some of these images are better than others but as a group these photos of varying quality document my 2 1/2 hour morning on that wonderful island.
I photograph Horned Larks often on Antelope Island and elsewhere but their propensity for perching on low rocks has been an issue for me.
It’s not easy to get photos of Horned Larks with insects in their beaks. The diet of adults of the species consists largely of seeds year-round but they do feed insects to their young so if you can catch them at the right time of year it’s possible to get photos of them with insects. Yesterday morning in the foothills of the Stansbury Mountains I photographed both a male and a female with their beaks full of insects.
