Earlier this week I spent several mornings photographing a female Western Kingbird as she was constructing her nest. Out of the many hundreds of shots I took of her the third image in this post is my favorite.
For millennia a variety of North American bird species used bison hair during nest construction but when the “buffalo” was brought to the brink of extinction by hunters in the late 1800’s that resource was essentially gone. Today there are relatively few places where bison hair is available to birds and Antelope Island is one of them.
Western Meadowlarks are good subjects for practicing take-off shots. The rule of thumb is the smaller the bird the faster the take-off, so songbirds are difficult subjects for this type of shot because of their small size and quickness.
The eight minutes I spent photographing this male Northern Harrier in flight were both exhilarating and frustrating to the extreme.
Five days ago I posted a series of images of a male Loggerhead Shrike feeding his mate (a ritual that is part of the pair bond between mated birds) and at the time I mentioned that I had photographed the same behavior the day before from the same birds. This is that sequence of images.
After eight years of photographing birds it’s not every day that I see something new but yesterday I did.
When I first approached this adult Red-tailed Hawk twelve days ago on the north end of Antelope Island I had the distinct impression that it was enjoying the view over the Great Salt Lake from its lofty perch.
This spring I’ve had several opportunities to photograph the courtship “flight display” of the male Northern Mockingbird. While singing continuously from his perch he jumps almost straight up about six feet as he flaps his wings a couple of times which displays those conspicuous white wing patches and then parachutes down with wings open to the same perch. This performance is repeated every 30-60 seconds or so for an extended period of time.
Male Loggerhead Shrikes feed their mates beginning with the formation of pair bonds in early spring and such behavior continues throughout the incubation and nestling periods.
Antelope Island is crawling (and flying) with “bugs” right now. Mosquitoes are common, flying midges are thick as are the dreaded biting gnats (I call this the “itching and bitching” season).
Because of their somewhat limited breeding range I suspect that many have never seen a Long-billed Curlew chick so I decided to post this little cutie despite the partially obscured view of the bird.
Six days ago on Antelope Island as I rounded a curve in the road I encountered this Burrowing Owl on a large rock with a clean setting and background. It was a cool morning and the sun had only recently come up so this bird was obviously enjoying the warming rays and showed no nervousness as I approached.
With its wings folded the plump, drab-plumaged Willet is brown and inconspicuous but a remarkable transformation takes place when those wings are opened.
Yesterday morning we were witness to a tense drama involving a badger and Long-tailed Weasels on Antelope Island. American badgers feed primarily on rodents (ground squirrels, pocket gophers, rats, mice and voles) which they often capture by digging out their burrows – the digging skills of badgers are legendary.
But on this day a close relative was on the menu.
Yesterday morning was a Western Kingbird bonanza along the Antelope Island causeway.
