A Compositional Conundrum
I intended this post to be a single image for my “Just A Shot That I Like” feature. It didn’t turn out that way. Six days ago I found this Great Blue Heron on the edge of a small, partially frozen creek with an almost vertical snow bank directly behind and very close to the bird. The heron was patient with me and I was close so I tried a variety of compositions using my 500 mm and 100-400 mm lenses. The incredibly fast shutter speeds were because of the bright snow and my forgetfulness in adjusting settings as I was juggling two cameras and lenses. In the end I couldn’t decide which composition I preferred so I’m presenting three of them here. 1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light This relatively tight vertical shows good detail on the bird and I like the close view of the swirly marks on the snow behind the heron made by a wing as it landed. 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 100 – 400 @ 400mm, natural light Some folks gravitate toward whole-bird reflections so I’m also including this composition. Ideally I’d prefer the bird to be slightly further left in the frame but cropping off the left makes the image too narrow vertically for my tastes and I have no more room on the right (image was taken vertically and is close to full frame). 1/6400, f/5.6, ISO 640, 100 – 400 @ 400mm, natural light A horizontal composition with the heron slightly smaller in the frame shows more of the…
Rough-legged Hawk Mantling, Then Take-off
My encounter with this Rough-legged Hawk was a frustrating one. It all began with a Northern Harrier on the snow-covered ground with prey (which turned out to be a Pied-billed Grebe) . It was quite far away, even if my tc had been attached (it wasn’t), so I put my pickup in gear to drive further down the road. Just then this hawk swooped in from behind (I couldn’t see it coming) to pilfer the prey from the harrier. By the time I got the pickup turned off and my tc attached the action between the two raptors was over – the harrier had vamoosed with the head of the grebe (based on the photos Mia was able to get) and the roughie was on the ground with what was left. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Here the hawk is “mantling” the grebe. Mantling is a behavior of raptors where they spread their wings, fan their tail and arch their body over their prey – effectively hiding it from other predators, particularly other raptors. In this image the tail isn’t completely fanned and the bird is looking back at us rather than arching its body. There’s a patch of blood on the snow and you can see part of the grebe under the right wing. 1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in The hawk quickly gobbled down what was left of the grebe, inspected the…
Birds Dealing With Snow And Cold
Birds use a variety of tactics to deal with the harsh conditions presented by an unusually cold and snowy winter. Some are more effective than others. I thought it might be interesting to see a few of them that I’ve been able to photograph in the last several weeks. My usual disclaimer for posts relating to behaviors; many of these images are technically lacking but I think they do illustrate some of the conditions these birds are having to cope with. 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light After a fresh snow, the food source for many small birds is largely hidden and unavailable without some extraordinary measures. This juvenile White-crowned Sparrow, and others in the flock, were flitting from one snow-covered perch to another in an obvious attempt at knocking the snow off so they could get to the seeds underneath. Here you can see the snow falling away and immediately afterward the sparrow fed on the uncovered seeds. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in When it gets very cold most water sources freeze up completely which makes fish largely inacessable to Bald Eagles so many of them turn to scavenging as their primary food source. But this species adapted very well to scavenging eons ago which is one of the reasons Ben Franklin looked in disfavor at the proposal to make the Bald Eagle our national bird. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or…
Red Fox Kits At Play
Ok, here it is only the middle of January and I’ve already had my fill of frigid temperatures, snow and inversions. This post is my temporary escape from it all – to spring green, warm temperatures and cute animal babies. In May of 2010 I found a den of Red Fox Kits at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. The den was only about 15′ from the road edge and I never left my pickup or the road while photographing the youngsters. Some of the images here (there are lots of them) have technical issues of composition and light angle but hey, rambunctious fox kits are a challenge to photograph. At least that’s my excuse… The photography was frenetic. I used three different cameras and lenses (500mm with and without tc, 100-400 zoom and 17-85 zoom). I missed a lot of interesting shots while switching gear – fun and frustrating at the same time. I’m leaving out camera exif data this time – just too much work and I don’t have the time this morning. Sorry Dwynn… At first there was a single kit out of the den. Then there were two. Three. And finally, four – you can see the top of the head of the fourth one as it emerges from the den. This is the only shot I kept that included all four kits. These youngsters aren’t as red as one might expect because they were covered in gray dust from playing in the dirt and crawling through the den. I…
Ferruginous Hawk In Head-on Flight
The Ferruginous Hawk is the largest, most powerful buteo in North America. They have a broad chest, wide gape, large head and long, narrow-tipped wings. Unlike most other buteos they often perch on the ground. Their huge nests, typically constructed in isolated trees or on cliffs, were often constructed of bison bones and wool before the elimination of that massive animal from the western plains. This species is often compared to the Golden Eagle with which it has much in common and they are fully deserving of their apt scientific name, Buteo regalis. 1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, called in or set up This bird had been perched on an old fence post in Utah’s west desert (background is the Stansbury Mountains) and I was able to capture it in flight soon after it lifted off. I like the blood on the left foot and the somewhat unusual wing position as it took off mostly in my direction. This wing position is seldom seen in photographs because the wing would obscure the head in the much more common side view. Typically these birds don’t take off toward the photographer from a low perch. Ron
Barn Owls In Flight
This is the time I’ve both looked forward to, and dreaded – when Barn Owls hunt during daytime. Normally this species is strictly nocturnal so they fly only during times that photography is virtually impossible. But around here, when it turns very cold and the snow is deep, they must continue to hunt during the day in order to survive. It’s my guess that there are two reasons for the change in behavior; the cold increases their demand for body heat and the food to supply it, combined with the difficulty of hunting voles when the snow is so deep. The last time these birds hunted regularly during daytime was several years ago when we had a similar frigid winter. Many of those birds didn’t survive until spring. 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Yesterday there were several Barn Owls hunting in mid-day soon after our latest storm began to clear out which finally allowed for some good light. It was brutally cold with perhaps a foot of fresh snow on the ground, on top of the snow from previous storms. Notice the ice/snow clumped on the feet of the owl. 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in I’ve mentioned before how difficult it can be to get a catch light in this species because of their deeply set eyes. I didn’t get any light in the eye in this image but I liked the wing…
It’s Been A Tough Winter For Birds (and it’s getting worse)
Typical winters are hard on birds in northern Utah (and elsewhere). But when the season is unusually frigid with lots of snow as we’re having this year they struggle even more to survive. All of these images have been taken since January 2 of this year. Upland game birds like this Chukar seem to have adapted to extreme conditions fairly well. This bird was all puffed up and sitting high on a rock to catch the earliest warming rays of the sun as it rose over the nearby Wasatch Mountains. Another upland game species that can apparently take harsh conditions quite well is the Ring-necked Pheasant (this is a female). They seem to forage for seeds at the base of plants where the snow isn’t as thick and their food is more readily available. But many other species have a difficult time and quite a few birds don’t survive until spring. The waterfowl that winter over here congregate in the few areas of open water where the flowing water is the last to freeze over. But when it gets very cold, even those small bits of open water freeze. I’ve seen ducks and coots frozen into the ice, some of them still alive. This female Green-winged Teal has just left one of the last unfrozen patches of water and is approaching an area of frost flowers. This Northern Flicker is using the protection of the underside of the eaves of a building on Antelope Island State Park. I thought the angled…
Image Theft And Identity Theft In One Fell Swoop
On January 4th I published a blog post regarding this image that had been stolen from my Feathered Photography galleries. My copyright had been removed and replaced with the logo of someone else and the image was posted on Facebook under the name of Alessandro Pinna (I’m appalled at the poor quality of this version due to overcompression…) As I reported before, I filed a DMCA takedown notice with Facebook and the image was removed the next day. But many other images on that FB account had been stolen and the comment section was brimming with vitriol and extreme anger. Justifiably so. It turns out that the real Alessandro Pinna has apparently been the victim of identity theft on FB and is innocent in this entire matter. Yesterday, he posted this police report on his website. I then posted the link to the police report on a FB group I belong to that is dedicated to dealing with image theft. At that time I was yet unsure about what was really going on. Then today, I received the following email from the real Alessandro Pinna (quoted with permission). He had seen both my blog post and the fact that I had posted the police report to the FB group. Dear Ron, I am writing to you because I just found out you guys are mentioning my name and my website on your blog. I just wanted to confirm it’s my name this guy has stolen and so I had to start the process to defend myself and clear…
A Vole Makes A Coyote Pay a Price For Its Meal
Yesterday morning I witnessed quite the little drama on Antelope Island. Two of them, really. This post will attempt to document what I saw. I lost sharp focus on a couple of these shots and some of the action was far away but I hope the images I include here will give you a feeling for all the excitement that unfolded. Going north on the ranch road we spotted four coyotes. Three of them crossed the road and walked slowly west while one of them left the area. At first I didn’t think they were in hunting mode, rather that they had a destination in mind. But this one detected a vole under the 6″ deep snow. From its body language it was obvious that it was able to hear the vole, even through all that snow. I’ve deliberately cropped this image to include the second coyote in the background. Notice in this shot, and the next two, that the background coyote is intensely watching something in front of and above it (there’s a relatively high mountain in that direction). Coyote #1 begins a pounce toward the source of the sound. The next image in the burst. It lands in the snow but apparently missed the vole. It stopped to listen again for a few seconds then pounced one more time. With its nose buried, it pushed through the snow like a snowplow for several feet. I believe that it was following the scent of the…
A Cannibalistic Long-tailed Weasel
Long-tailed Weasels are elusive and fascinating critters. Some interesting information about them might include the following: sexually dimorphic, females 10 to 15% smaller than males the name is appropriate as the length of their tail can equal up to 70% of the head and body length eyes are black in daylight but glow a bright, emerald-green in a spotlight at night like other mustelids, have anal scent glands that produce a liquid with a strong, musky odor go through delayed implantation, they mate in July-Aug but implantation (and growth) of fertilized egg into uterine wall is delayed until March but after implantation the embryo develops for only 4 weeks before birth. This timing allows for birth in spring when prey is abundant. are obligate carnivores, prefer prey fresh or alive, seldom eat carrion aggressive and fearless hunters, often killing prey much larger than themselves with a bite to the neck favorite prey includes mice, rats, chipmunks, squirrels, moles, shrews, rabbits and chickens are “surplus killers”, often killing more than they can consume And they are occasional cannibals! Previously I posted two images from this encounter with a cannibalistic weasel at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. These three photos are new to my blog. This weasel had killed one of its kin and was trying to run with the body along the road at the refuge. It was having a very difficult time carrying that long corpse through all the vegetation, which was probably the only thing that slowed it down enough for me to manage…