Critters Among the Sunflowers of Antelope Island
Antelope Island is ablaze with color this fall, provided by the common sunflower Helianthus annus. The sunflower display is really quite spectacular this year – the most prolific I’ve ever seen it. I suspect it’s because of the very wet spring we’ve had. The sunflowers can provide a very pleasing setting for wildlife photography, whether the flowers are in focus along with your subject or out of focus to show off some pleasing and unusual color in the background bokeh. Canon 40D @ 72mm, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 320, EV +0.33 It’s unusual for me to get so close to a pronghorn that I don’t have to use a telephoto lens but these bucks are in rut right now and they’re so intent on herding their harem of females that they’re not nearly so wary of people and vehicles. So I quickly pulled out my old 40D and shot this handsome fella at only 72mm while he was right next to my pickup and staring intently at his ladies close by. This allowed me to keep many of the sunflowers relatively sharp and gave a different “feel” to the image than I usually get with my big glass. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, EV + 0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In contrast to the previous image, this Vesper Sparrow was shot with my 500mm and 1.4 teleconverter (1120mm with the crop factor of the 7D) at f/5.6 which gave me very little depth of field – just enough to get the sparrow sharp but the sunflowers in the background…