{"id":123549,"date":"2022-11-14T06:11:06","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T13:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=123549"},"modified":"2022-11-14T08:24:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T15:24:32","slug":"golden-eagle-nictitating-membrane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/14\/golden-eagle-nictitating-membrane\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Eagle Nictitating Membrane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I’m often disappointed when the bird in one of my photos that I like otherwise has its nictitating membrane closed. But for a Golden Eagle I’ll make an exception, especially when it’s in flight and I have other photos of the same bird without its membrane showing.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"123550\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/14\/golden-eagle-nictitating-membrane\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"5.6","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1668179012","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.0002","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"golden eagle 2173 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-123550 size-full\" title=\"golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2173-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Three days ago I got a lot of nice photos of this adult Golden Eagle in flight but until last night I hadn’t noticed that in this one its membrane is closed, resulting in a left eye that appears cloudy. The nictitating membrane is a third eyelid, beneath the other two, that is translucent or partially transparent.<\/p>\n<p>Birds close their membranes briefly for a variety of reasons, including to protect their eyes from wind, dust and hazards and to keep their eyes moist. In this case it’s most likely that the eagle blinked its membrane just to moisten its eye and that’s when my shutter clicked.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"123551\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/14\/golden-eagle-nictitating-membrane\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"5.6","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1668179012","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.0002","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"golden eagle 2175 big crop ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-123551 size-full\" title=\"golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was pleased to see that the image was sharp enough, and I had enough detail, to crop in tightly on the photo for an even better look at the membrane.<\/p>\n<p>I’ve only photographed a Golden Eagle’s membrane twice before and in neither of those images was the eagle in flight, so I thought this photo was interesting enough to share. Most of us have seen the membrane of other birds many times but I’m betting that few have seen it in a wild Golden Eagle.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, when discussing forest conservation Ronald Reagan once famously said, “If you’ve looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees \u2014 you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?”, Those that ascribe to Reagan’s philosophy may think that if you’ve seen one nictitating membrane you’ve seen them all.<\/p>\n<p>I think otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I’m often disappointed when the bird in one of my photos that I like otherwise has its nictitating membrane closed. Not this time. (2 images)<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/14\/golden-eagle-nictitating-membrane\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123551,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[334,8,642],"tags":[24,643,146,153,6612,6609,6611,311],"class_list":["post-123549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-golden-eagles","tag-adult","tag-aquila-chrysaetos","tag-flight","tag-golden-eagle","tag-if-youve-seen-one-tree-youve-seen-them-all","tag-nictitating-membrane-function","tag-ronald-reagan-quote","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/golden-eagle-2175-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-w8J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123549"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123582,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123549\/revisions\/123582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}