On my Montana trips Short-eared Owls are always one of my primary target species but sadly I seldom see them in recent years. This bird was one of two owls I found in almost five days of searching at the end of last month.
On the mornings when we leave Montana’s Centennial Valley the 27 miles of dirt road until we hit pavement are always a little depressing because we’re so reluctant to leave that wonderful place. But occasionally our melancholy is assuaged and our spirits lifted by birds and other wildlife we see on the way out.
When we arrived at the sapsucker nest hole we were delighted to find that both adults were busy feeding chicks and maintaining a tidy home for their family.
I photographed this male Northern Harrier earlier this month as it hunted the causeway to Antelope Island. The grayish-browns of the bird are similar to the grays of the Great Salt Lake mudflats in the background. Monochromatic images like this may be an acquired taste for many and it was through the influence of my friend and photographer Richard Ditch that I learned to appreciate them.
It’s virtually unheard of for me to catch a kingbird in full flight (as opposed to take-off or landing) with any kind of image quality but two days ago I finally had some success in that arena.
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.
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.
Yesterday morning we photographed an industrious female Western Kingbird as she worked at constructing her nest. In this species the sexes are similar but only the female builds the nest. The male hung around nearby as he watched over the laborious construction process and offered his mate encouragement (that was good of him don’t you think?).
The eight minutes I spent photographing this male Northern Harrier in flight were both exhilarating and frustrating to the extreme.
I often photograph Bald Eagles in Utah during winter but for me those images have a different mood (for lack of a better word) because they’re often taken near urban environments and for me they don’t convey the feeling of wildness that I so love about the Centennial Valley. And I very seldom get anything “green” in my Utah Bald Eagle images taken in winter.
I started thinking about Sandhill Cranes for this post because a few days ago I drove through some of the mountain valleys in the Wasatch Range where I usually see these birds this time of year and they seemed to be totally absent. I hope that was just a happenstance of observation and not an actual fact. Earlier this spring I did see a lot of them migrating through.
Yesterday morning just after sunrise I was driving slowly on an isolated and deserted road looking for birds when I encountered a male Northern Harrier hunting along the road edge as it flew in the same direction I was traveling.
With its wings folded the plump, drab-plumaged Willet is brown and inconspicuous but a remarkable transformation takes place when those wings are opened.
