Tag: vanity plate

Male Northern Harrier In Flight

When asked to name my favorite avian species I always bristle a bit at the question but if pressed on the subject I’ll sometimes provide a short list of candidates and I must admit that the Northern Harrier is likely to be the first one mentioned.  The vanity plate on my pickup (and at the top of this blog page) is evidence that can’t be denied that I do play favorites to some degree. My admiration for the species is based on a variety of factors – their beauty, the stunning dimorphism of the sexes which is so unusual among raptors, the challenge of photographing such a wary subject, their incredible agility in flight (especially while hunting) and at the top of my list would be their admirable tenacity at survival in abysmal conditions which I’ve witnessed first hand.    1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’m especially delighted when I can get close to the male (the elusive “gray ghost”) in flight with a wing position and background I like.  Throw in eye contact (they always seem to be looking down) and no blown whites in the rump patch and I’ve had a good day. Ron

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A License to Bird

To be perfectly honest I’ve always been slightly disdainful of personalized (vanity) license plates, at least for me.   I generally prefer relative anonymity, partly because my natural inclination is to avoid bringing attention to myself (so why am I blogging?…)  Not to say that I don’t enjoy reading them on other vehicles while driving and I often have fun with the challenge of trying to figure out what some of them really mean.   Since I spend a lot of time photographing birds I occasionally run across “birder plates” at some of the refuges and marshes I frequent.  So recently, after the purchase of a new pickup, I decided to break out of my mold and join the crowd.    For me, “HARRIER” was almost a foregone conclusion if it was still available, and it was.  Many of the better images in my avian collection are of the Northern Harrier, which most folks refer to simply as “harrier”.   Whenever I’m forced to choose a favorite avian subject (a choice I don’t like to make) I typically choose this species.  They’re magnificent aerial athletes, beautiful, extremely challenging photographic subjects and they carry that “raptor mystique”.     Canon 7D, 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV -0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc After waiting over 6 weeks to have them delivered (come on Utah, get on the stick!) they finally arrived a few days ago.  Today was my first day photographing birds since I got them and I thought it fitting that I was able to get this shot of a juvenile male harrier taking off from a sagebrush out on Antelope…

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