I’m having some serious computer problems this morning so I can’t access my image techs and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to publish this post. Any other ‘hiccups’ that show up will likely also be related to the issues I’m having.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/northern-harrier-9797-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-9797-ron-dudley\\"")
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This is an older photo of a male Northern Harrier flying east along the Antelope Island causeway. The Great Salt Lake is in the background with a narrow slice of the shoreline visible at the bottom of the frame.<\/p>\n
When I photograph harriers along the causeway they’re usually hunting so their flight is slow. But based on his flight posture and forward-looking gaze this ‘Gray Ghost’ has his afterburners fired up with a destination in mind so I’m pleasantly surprised he’s as sharp as he is. Sometimes I get lucky.<\/p>\n
Honestly, I’m mystified by the out of focus blobs behind the bird.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/northern-harrier-9797-full-frame-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-9797-full-frame-ron-dudley\\"")
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The uncropped, unrotated version of the same image shows lots of those blobs. At one time I probably knew what they were but this many years later I can’t remember. To me they don’t look like the usual suspects – other birds, chunks of ice or rocks (they’re too uniform in size to be rocks) – so for now they’ll just have to remain a mystery.<\/p>\n
If I get my primary computer booted up soon (right now I’m on an old backup computer while my newer one is attempting to ‘fix itself’) I’ll add image techs and the date this photo was taken.<\/p>\n
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I miss photographing harriers along the causeway. If this photo was taken today there would be no lake in the background. Because of that and because of all the recent construction it isn’t just unusual to find birds along the causeway, it’s rare. I can’t remember the last time I saw a harrier along the causeway. Or even a kestrel.<\/p>\n
This bird photographer yearns for the good old days.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Addendum: <\/em><\/p>\nMy primary computer is now up and running. Whew!<\/em><\/p>\nNow here’s a coincidence. This harrier photo was taken nine years ago today, on October 10, 2012, so the blobs aren’t ice chunks.<\/em><\/p>\nImage techs for the photo – 1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,\u00a0 Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Including some mystery “blobs”.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,8,341],"tags":[493,86,5704,146,746,211,234],"class_list":["post-103200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-northern-harriers","tag-antelope-island-causeway","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-disappearing-great-salt-lake","tag-flight","tag-gray-ghost","tag-male","tag-northern-harrier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/northern-harrier-9797-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-qQw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103228,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103200\/revisions\/103228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}