{"id":140774,"date":"2023-08-09T04:58:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T10:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=140774"},"modified":"2023-08-09T05:09:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T11:09:23","slug":"turkey-vulture-taking-off-and-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/09\/turkey-vulture-taking-off-and-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Vulture Taking Off And In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 8 I photographed a Turkey Vulture taking off and in flight in a remote area of northern Utah. The next day I posted a single photo of that bird, taken as ‘he’ was lifting his wings in preparation for launch. Today I’ve decided to post the entire series of eight photos, in sequence and without any skips.<\/p>\n

Some are better than others and those that are flawed will be obvious to the viewer. But readers know that I’m a fan of seeing the mechanics of takeoff and flight in my photos and even flawed photos can contribute to that goal, so today you get the good with the not so good.<\/p>\n

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This is the shot I posted two days ago. I’m including it again because it contributes to the series.<\/p>\n

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These photos were taken 2 1\/4 hours after sunrise so with the sun that high in the sky, and with the position of his right wing, much of his body is in deep shade with little detail.<\/p>\n

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In a series like this, at least one photo with the bird’s head entirely hidden is almost inevitable. I’ve cropped more tightly on the bird in this shot in order to avoid cutting off his shadow on the rocks below him.<\/p>\n

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Another good look at the distinctive “pale trailing edge” of the wings of Turkey Vultures.<\/p>\n

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Here his body is at a steep angle in an attempt to gain elevation quickly and avoid the jagged rocks on the hillside in front of him.<\/p>\n

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At this point it appears that he’s beginning to veer to his left and away from me but if that was the case he…<\/p>\n

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straightened out pretty quickly – probably to avoid the rocks.<\/p>\n

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This is the last shot I got before I lost focus on him. With the background so close my active focus point grabbed onto it instead of the bird. I kept trying to reacquire focus but it didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

When I’m photographing dark or black birds that seems to happen more often than it does with light colored birds. One of the many vagaries and frustrations of bird photography.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note: Image techs for these photos are at or near 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

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

A series of eight photos.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140778,"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":[334,910],"tags":[912,4476,7054,851,911,311],"class_list":["post-140774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-turkey-vultures","tag-cathartes-aura","tag-flight-series","tag-pale-trailing-edge-of-wings","tag-taking-off","tag-turkey-vulture","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/turkey-vulture-7396-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ACy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140774","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=140774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140822,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140774\/revisions\/140822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}