Generally the White-faced Ibis is non-aggressive as it feeds in large groups of its own kind. Even when they accidentally bump into each other there is usually no aggressive response. But there are exceptions…
I tend to like quirky photographs that make me think for a moment or send mixed signals to my brain. Or both. For me, this image is one of those.
American White Pelicans eat fish almost exclusively and the size range of fish they’ll attempt to swallow can be extreme. If they show poor judgment they can get into serious trouble.
Juvenile Black-billed Magpies have significantly less iridescence in their plumage than the adults so the amount that appeared in this young bird surprised me.
Yesterday morning at Farmington Bay I photographed a subtle but interesting bit of kingbird behavior that caught my attention and piqued my curiosity.
On a visit to Glover Pond last week I found this Greater Yellowlegs resting on a rock surrounded by relatively clear, still water which I thought made a nice setting for the bird (even though the rock also provided some compositional challenges).
Rabbits, both wild and domestic, are notorious for heavy tick infestations and the cottontails and jackrabbits on Antelope Island share that miserable fate.
Yesterday morning I decided to break with one of my long-standing traditions and brave the potential crowds by visiting one of the more popular birding sites in the area on a weekend – Glover Pond near Farmington Bay WMA. One of my goals was to locate and photograph the Little Blue Heron that has been hanging around in the area for the last couple of weeks. That bird is causing a lot of excitement in the birding and photography communities because it’s so far out of its range. I never did find that heron but this one more than made up for it.
I make every effort in the field to “read” the behavior of my avian subjects. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m not but either way it’s a learning experience for me and my percentage of accuracy does seem to be improving. One of the payoffs can be better bird photographs for a variety of reasons.
Typically I tend to not be a fan of flight shots where the bird is already past me but though this Swainson’s Hawk has already done so I keep coming back to the image for a combination of reasons.
I’ve always loved ravens. I appreciate their intelligence, their adaptability and their association with myth and mystery in human folklore. I also enjoy their playfulness. But here in Utah the future is not looking bright for our two largest corvid species, the Common Raven and the American Crow.
The nesting season of Mountain Bluebirds in Montana’s Centennial Valley was delayed this year due to a late spring cold snap so during my visit there last week some of them were still feeding youngsters in the nest boxes. I’ve found it to be relatively easy to photograph the parent birds on top of the nest boxes with insects for the chicks in their beaks but catching them in flight as they leave the nest with fecal sacs is another story altogether.
This past Sunday morning as I crested a very large hill (Monida Hill) at the west end of the Centennial Valley I noticed an elk calf below me and behind a fence. As soon as I stopped my pickup and the road noise quit I could tell it was in distress from the almost constant noise it was making. I don’t know what to call that sound so I’ll simply refer to it as a “call”. The sound was pitiful and almost heartbreaking to hear.
This is the time of year that Swainson’s Hawks usually begin to converge on the Centennial Valley to feast on grasshoppers and believe me the area produces grasshoppers in abundance – probably more of them than I’ve ever seen elsewhere (and I grew up on a Montana farm where grasshoppers were unfortunately one of our most successful crops).
If you thought that stilts have the longest legs relative to body size of all bird species you’d be wrong. But not by much. That distinction belongs to flamingos but stilts come in a close second.
