{"id":142134,"date":"2023-09-01T06:19:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T12:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=142134"},"modified":"2023-09-01T09:02:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T15:02:19","slug":"solitary-sandpipers-an-unusual-species-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/01\/solitary-sandpipers-an-unusual-species-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Solitary Sandpipers – An Unusual Species For Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

And a chance encounter with an old friend.<\/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

Three days ago, near the end of the auto tour loop at Bear River MBR, I was lucky enough to find several migrating Solitary Sandpipers. As I was approaching them I expected them to be Greater or Lesser Yellowlegs so I was pleasantly surprised when they turned out to be Solitary Sandpipers, a species I see far less often.<\/p>\n

I was also surprised that they were so calm with me so close. When I first approached them, this bird stopped and stared at me for a while, just to make sure I was no threat. After that they calmly went about their business.<\/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

They may have accepted me, but they were extremely wary of potential threats from the sky. I saw this upward-looking pose multiple times from several of the sandpipers.<\/p>\n

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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

There were three of them in the group but this was one of the few photos I got with more than one of them in the frame. Not a good shot but it verifies that there was more than one of them.<\/p>\n

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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

They didn’t give me much in the way of interesting poses, or if they did I had the ‘wrong’ bird in my viewfinder when it happened. This bird lifted off and…<\/p>\n

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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

flew a short distance to a different spot on the water but I didn’t have a very good angle on it.<\/p>\n

At that point I figured I’d been lucky. Except for a single vehicle I’d had the refuge completely to myself all morning and I’d already spent quite a while with the sandpipers and taken many photos of them. I knew that…<\/p>\n

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my good friend and blog follower April Olson was approaching from about a quarter mile behind me (in her rental car while her car was being repaired). I’d taken this photo earlier in the morning but while I was with the sandpipers I could see her approaching so I drove on down the road so April would have a better experience with the sandpipers with me not there.<\/p>\n

Eventually, when both April and I had reached the end of the auto tour loop, we had a good long visit in our vehicles. It’d been a long while since we’d visited so we took the opportunity to catch up on a lot of stuff. It was at that point that she told me that by the time she got to the sandpipers they’d all moved off to much farther away.<\/p>\n

Our visit was one of the highlights of my morning. April’s one of the good guys.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Some notes about the last photo.<\/em><\/p>\n