{"id":13385,"date":"2013-03-17T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T07:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=13385"},"modified":"2013-03-17T05:57:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-17T11:57:03","slug":"my-first-western-meadowlark-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/17\/my-first-western-meadowlark-of-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Western Meadowlark Of The Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, despite the fact that it’s turning colder again this week I’m now convinced that spring has arrived because\u00a0two days ago\u00a0I finally got close enough to photograph a singing Western Meadowlark –\u00a0my first of the year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I was sure the bird would fly off as I approached, just as all the others have this spring,\u00a0but this one stuck.\u00a0 I like the somewhat different head angle in this shot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I probably have more trouble with framing this species than any other because their legs are always longer than I think they are when they’re buried in the perch like this and I typically don’t leave enough room for at least one of\u00a0them.\u00a0 This time I think I did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When the bird would break out in song it truly lifted my spirits, as it always does.\u00a0 They’re just so enthusiastic about it and when you’re close the sound can go right through you – in a good way.\u00a0 I’m always impressed by the size of their mouth which seems to be exaggerated some by that long beak.<\/p>\n

I suspect there are a few of my regular readers who are unfamiliar with the call of this songster (Elephant’s Child in Australia, for example) so I’ve provided a link<\/em><\/a> to their\u00a0song if you’d like to hear it\u00a0(scroll down about half-way).<\/p>\n

These birds (and their song) always make me think of my childhood on the Montana family farm.\u00a0 So many good memories…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Ok, despite the fact that it’s turning colder again this week I’m now convinced that spring has arrived because\u00a0two days ago\u00a0I finally got close enough to photograph a singing Western Meadowlark –\u00a0my first of the year.   \u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light \u00a0I was sure the bird would fly off as I approached, just as all the others have this spring,\u00a0but this one stuck.\u00a0 I like the somewhat different head angle in this shot.     \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light I probably have more trouble with framing this species than any other because their legs are always longer than I think they are when they’re buried in the perch like this and I typically don’t leave enough room for at least one of\u00a0them.\u00a0 This time I think I did.     \u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light When the bird would break out in song it truly lifted my spirits, as it always does.\u00a0 They’re just so enthusiastic about it and when you’re close the sound can go right through you – in a good way.\u00a0 I’m always impressed by the size of their mouth which seems to be exaggerated some by that long beak. I suspect there are a few of my regular readers who are unfamiliar with the call of this songster (Elephant’s Child in Australia, for example) so I’ve provided a link to their\u00a0song if you’d like to hear it\u00a0(scroll down about half-way). These birds (and their…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[334,370],"tags":[1335,284,289,669,323],"class_list":["post-13385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-call","tag-singing","tag-song","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-western-meadowlark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3tT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385","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=13385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}