{"id":133685,"date":"2023-04-11T05:30:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T11:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=133685"},"modified":"2023-04-11T09:55:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T15:55:46","slug":"drake-cinnamon-teal-in-flight-soon-after-takeoff-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/11\/drake-cinnamon-teal-in-flight-soon-after-takeoff-a-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Cinnamon Teal In Flight Soon After Takeoff – A Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a good day for Cinnamon Teals at Bear River MBR.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful spring morning – sunny, windless, relatively warm and I was almost the only soul on the refuge (friend and blog follower April Olson was there while I was but our paths didn’t cross). About all l could have asked for was a few more birds.<\/p>\n

I was on a mission to photograph Cinnamon Teals in flight. I had many opportunities but getting them in flight is a very tall order because their takeoffs are so explosive and their flight is so fast and erratic.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I had my best luck with this drake. I’ve learned to be able to anticipate their takeoffs with some accuracy but that only gives you an edge. You still need fast reflexes and more than a little luck.<\/p>\n

This photo doesn’t have much going for it except that it helps me to tell the story – it was taken just before he exploded into the air. I can look at his posture and tell that he’s thinking about exiting stage left, and quickly.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Usually my reflexes are a little faster than they were this time. When he took off I barely kept him in frame but I still like the shot reasonably well because it includes both the bird and the water splash caused by his takeoff. And they’re both sharp.<\/p>\n

In the next photo in the burst I cut off part of his head but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, canvas added, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

in the photo after that I got him fully in frame and in focus again. The bad news is that I had to add canvas to achieve an acceptable composition but I like the shot so much I couldn’t see not doing it.<\/p>\n

I love the expansive and colorfully iridescent speculum<\/a><\/span><\/span> of this species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I managed to keep him in frame and in focus for nine more photos. I like this one with his wings up as a counterpoint to the previous photo with his wings down. I got one more photo that I like a lot too, but I’m not including it because it’s almost identical to this one.<\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering, that’s water in the background in the last two photos – not sky. But then the blue is a reflection of the sky so I suppose it could be argued either way.<\/p>\n

In my experience you almost have to be a glutton for punishment to even attempt to get quality photos of Cinnamon Teals in flight so it felt pretty darn good to finally have some success.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Yesterday was a good day for Cinnamon Teals at Bear River MBR. (3 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133687,"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":[338,6,334,357],"tags":[2192,49,84,2809,146,211,6849,6850,2738,311],"class_list":["post-133685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-cinnamon-teals","tag-adding-canvas","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-cinnamon-teal","tag-drake","tag-flight","tag-male","tag-spatula-cyanoptera","tag-speculum","tag-takeoff","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/cinnamon-teal-6673-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-yMd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133685","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=133685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133751,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133685\/revisions\/133751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}