{"id":109303,"date":"2022-03-29T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=109303"},"modified":"2022-03-29T06:00:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:00:41","slug":"a-pronghorn-buck-a-rock-wren-and-some-antelope-island-geology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/29\/a-pronghorn-buck-a-rock-wren-and-some-antelope-island-geology\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pronghorn Buck, A Rock Wren And Some Antelope Island Geology"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a Red-tailed Hawk thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 271mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

After not seeing Pronghorn on Antelope Island up close for a very long time I’ve finally been seeing them a little more often lately. Six days ago I found three handsome bucks hanging out right next to the road so I took a few shots. They were so close to me and to each other I could never get enough depth of field to get more than one of them sharp so I concentrated on this guy who was a little bit separated from the other two.<\/p>\n

I like this shot for his noble pose and the Tintic Quartzite boulder to his left. Light colored Tintic Quartzite outcrops and boulders are relatively young rocks that are highly resistant to erosion so they’re easily seen on the northern third of the island (Ladyfinger Point especially).<\/p>\n

Birds such as Chukars, Willets and various songbirds like to perch on them so they’re found in many of my photos but I seldom get a chance to include most or all of a single boulder in the frame. I have a love\/hate relationship with those boulders because they’re an iconic symbol of the island but because of their very light color they can be an exposure nightmare for the photographer when a darker bird perches on them.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Two days after I photographed the Pronghorn I found this Rock Wren singing away atop another one of\u00a0 the Tintic Quartzite boulders a little further to the east. He was far away and I didn’t like any of my singing shots but it’s unusual for me to get a Rock Wren in my viewfinder so I decided to include a couple of documentary photos in today’s post.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The only time I got a broadside look at him his legs and feet were hidden .These photos were taken early in the morning before the light got harsh so acceptable exposure wasn’t as much of a problem as it usually is.<\/p>\n

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This area next to the road on the north end of the island provides the best look at the Tintic Quartzite outcrops that most visitors to the island get. Tintic Quartzite was formed in the Cambrian Period about 540 to 570 million years ago but geologically speaking that’s young so they’re some of the youngest rocks in Utah.<\/p>\n

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Antelope Island is a place of contrasts. Much of the southern 2\/3 of the island has exposures of much darker Farmington Canyon Complex rocks formed about 2.5 billion years ago so they’re the oldest rocks on the island and some of the oldest in Utah. For a perspective on relative time, the oldest rocks at the bottom of the Grand Canyon are only<\/em> about 1.8 billion years old.<\/p>\n

Farmington Canyon Complex rocks are so dark they often look nearly black but this photo was taken early in the morning in very warm light so their color isn’t accurate.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This immature Red-tailed Hawk was taking off from some of the same Farmington Canyon Complex rocks seen in the previous photo. Their color in this photo is much more accurate.<\/p>\n

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So next time you visit the island, if you ever do, I hope today’s post will enhance your appreciation of it. The island has a lot to offer that many visitors are unaware of.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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With a Red-tailed Hawk thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109327,"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":[3,334,8,373,450,5753],"tags":[6275,6276,135,6277,2937,6274,6273,451,1572,305],"class_list":["post-109303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-pronghorns","category-red-tailed-hawks","category-rock-wren","tag-age-of-grand-canyon-rocks","tag-cambrian-period","tag-farmington-canyon-complex","tag-geology-of-antelope-island","tag-ladyfinger-point","tag-oldest-and-youngest-rocks-in-utah","tag-pronghorn-buck","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-rock-wren","tag-tintic-quartzite"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/red-tailed-hawk-0755b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-sqX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109303","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=109303"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109338,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109303\/revisions\/109338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}