Tag: pheasant

Just A Shot That I Like… #18 – Fighting Ring-necked Pheasants

In this neck of the woods Ring-necked Pheasants start feeling frisky about this time of year.   Territories are being established, hormones flowing and feathers flying.  When fighting, these birds flutter up against each other breast to breast, bite each other’s wattles and sometimes make high leaps toward each other using claws, bills and spurs.  It can be quite dramatic.   Just as the sun came over the mountains I pulled into a gravel hunter’s parking lot at the refuge and noticed these two birds going at it.  I assumed they wouldn’t let me get close enough for quality photos but they were so intent on their battle that they mostly ignored me and I was able to get just close enough.    1/640, f/9, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc With the low light I was fighting for both shutter speed and depth of field and was pleasantly surprised to get both birds sharp at these settings.  I’m always very happy to get behavioral shots like this, busy background or not. Ron

Continue reading

Just a Shot That I Like… #7 – Ring-necked Pheasant Roosting In Tree

Many folks think of Ring-necked Pheasants as strictly ground dwelling birds but that’s simply not the case.  These pheasants regularly roost in trees at night and the following morning they will often be active in the roost tree for up to an hour before descending to the ground for the rest of the day.    1/800, f/8, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Virtually every time I’ve seen these birds in trees it’s been on very cold, sunny mornings so I’ve always had the impression that they’re sunning themselves to warm up a bit.  Usually they flush to the ground for cover before I can get close enough for quality photos but this cooperative male apparently decided that his chill was more of a threat to him than I was.  He let me shoot away from close range for quite a while even though he was perhaps 20′ up in the tree and on a very exposed branch.  Long-tailed birds like pheasants and magpies can present difficult compositional problems when cropping for presentation but I though this vertical crop worked out well with him on the diagonal perch.    Ron  

Continue reading