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<\/p>\nAfter four days stuck at home it was good to finally get back out in the field yesterday morning but both the birding and the bird photography were mediocre at best.<\/p>\n
I spent the morning in and near the mountains of the west desert but birds were hard to come by and things mostly didn’t work out with those I did find. Usually when I post photos to my blog readers see my successes but this time I decided to show you what a frustrating morning looks like for me. Needless to say I won’t be posting any great photos today but hopefully you’ll still find something interesting.<\/p>\n
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The Ferruginous Hawks along the fence line where they’ve been cooperative in the recent past were exactly the opposite yesterday. Only minutes after sunrise this one took off before I could get anywhere near it so mostly out of frustration I fired off a few shots when it was far away and flying away from me.<\/p>\n
I like the very warm light on the bird against the still-shaded mountains in the background but for me that’s about the only thing this image has going for it. The left wing is soft due to motion blur because in this low light my shutter speed was only 1\/800.<\/p>\n
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I couldn’t see enough of the bird well enough to tell for sure but I believe this is a Cooper’s Hawk.<\/p>\n
I really like the way the bird is framed by the greenery and I think the background is interesting but the hawk is strongly side lit and there’s way too many needles and twigs in front of the bird. To make matters worse I had a hard time focusing on ‘his’ head because of the greenery so close to to his face so his head is a little soft.<\/p>\n
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There were pretty good numbers of Townsend’s Solitaires in the mountains but they were always too far away or perched at the tops of tall trees which made the shooting angle far too steep.<\/p>\n
By this time I was discouraged and the light was beginning to get harsh so I headed for home. About the only other birds I photographed yesterday in the mountains were small groups of excited and noisy Clark’s Nutcrackers but true to form for that morning they absolutely refused to come in close so my photos of them were nothing special.<\/p>\n
But I did have a somewhat interesting experience with an immature Red-tailed Hawk on the trip home.<\/p>\n
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The red-tail was perched on what I believe is a small weather station right next to the road. I think that’s a small antenna directly below ‘his’ raised foot. The station isn’t very tall so the hawk was only about 20′ off the ground. Normally I don’t stop for hawks on ugly perches but it had been such a slow morning I thought I might salvage the day with a takeoff or flight shot. As you’re about to see, that didn’t happen – not by a long shot.<\/p>\n
While I had him in my viewfinder I could hear the incredibly noisy approach of two humongous gravel trucks pulling two trailers each from about a half mile away. As they got close, on that very rough road, the noise was deafening so I was sure the hawk would spook and give me a chance for takeoff shots.<\/p>\n
In situations like this I typically fire a burst just before the truck comes between me and the bird in hopes of getting a dynamic takeoff shot of the frightened bird. This photo is the last one I got before the lead truck came between me and the hawk.<\/p>\n
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Here’s the next shot in the burst. Mostly all we see is the speeding, out of focus truck but I must have timed this photo so that we can see through a small space between the truck’s cab and the first trailer so we can also see the tail and rump of the bird through that space. Almost unbelievably the hawk is still there.<\/p>\n
If you could only hear the incredible noise those trucks were making you’d understand why this surprised me so much.<\/p>\n
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And this is the first shot I got immediately after the first truck had passed. That silly bird hadn’t even twitched –\u00a0 hell, he didn’t even lower his raised foot as the truck was passing so he could make a quicker getaway if he had to. In the city where there’s lots of traffic maybe that wouldn’t have been quite so surprising but these country birds are usually much more skittish than that.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this little incident both interested and amused me. Maybe I was more easily amused because it had been such a slow morning.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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It was good to finally get back out in the field yesterday morning.<\/p>\n