{"id":105673,"date":"2022-01-01T06:23:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T13:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=105673"},"modified":"2022-01-01T06:46:47","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T13:46:47","slug":"the-first-bird-i-photographed-in-2021-was-a-big-surprise-and-late-in-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/01\/the-first-bird-i-photographed-in-2021-was-a-big-surprise-and-late-in-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Bird I Photographed In 2021 Was A Big Surprise And Late In Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2021 I didn’t photograph my first bird of the year (or at east keep any photos of birds I may have photographed) until January 9, mostly because of persistent overcast skies that made for poor shooting conditions. The anger, anxiety, depression and extreme sadness resulting from the events of January 6 may have contributed to that delay.<\/p>\n

But nine days into the new year I finally got my first bird and it was a doozy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

It was an adult Bald Eagle that I didn’t even have to leave my neighborhood for. A considerate neighbor who knew I was a passionate bird photographer called to tell me there was a Bald Eagle in a tree in a neighbor’s yard behind her house. I had to drive around in an unfamiliar part of the neighborhood to have an unobstructed view in half-way decent light but when I finally positioned myself I was close to the eagle and it didn’t fly off for several minutes.<\/p>\n

I hadn’t photographed an eagle in my neighborhood since I had to have my huge, old and dangerous elm tree removed that eagles used to perch in occasionally in winter so even seeing this bird was a real treat. Getting some decent photos of it and having a Bald Eagle be my first bird of the year were the icing on the proverbial cake.<\/p>\n

Dang, I hope I don’t have to wait nine more days to photograph my first bird of 2022. The forecast for tomorrow morning looks clear and frigid (9\u00b0 F.) so I have high hopes.<\/p>\n

I have to be honest, I wish I had similar lofty hopes for how 2022 will turn out for all of us but I just don’t. But I do have what I think may be realistic expectations that 2022 will be a significant improvement over last year. And the sooner that anticipated trend begins the better.<\/p>\n

So, Happier<\/em> New Year my friends! I wish the very best for all of you in 2022.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS – I don’t know about you but my New Year started out on a high note. The anticipated and extremely annoying fireworks last night were kept to a bare minimum. I barely heard them, none of them were in my neighborhood and they didn’t last anywhere near as long as they usually do.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a start…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2021 I didn’t photograph my first bird of the year until January 9 but that particular bird was (mostly) worth the wait.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105674,"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":[355,334],"tags":[43,6090,4383,400,6091,311],"class_list":["post-105673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bald-eagles","category-birds","tag-bald-eagle","tag-events-of-january-6","tag-fireworks","tag-haliaeetus-leucocephalus","tag-new-year-2022","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/bald-eagle-5569-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-rup","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105673","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=105673"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105701,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105673\/revisions\/105701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}