{"id":142542,"date":"2023-09-08T05:14:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T11:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=142542"},"modified":"2023-09-08T05:14:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T11:14:32","slug":"black-crowned-night-heron-on-an-unusual-perch-for-the-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/08\/black-crowned-night-heron-on-an-unusual-perch-for-the-species\/","title":{"rendered":"Black-crowned Night Heron On An Unusual Perch For The Species"},"content":{"rendered":"

My “gadget” saves my bacon.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 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 I found this juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron perched on a snag near the middle of one of the larger canals at Bear River MBR. ‘She’ was in good light but her body cast a shadow on the upper portion of the snag, which I’m not sure I like.<\/p>\n

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I was surprised to find her where she was. In my experience, when this species is hunting (fishing, usually) they’re close enough to the water to allow them to strike at prey. When they’re not hunting they’re nearly always backed up against vegetation, or partially hidden in vegetation, to give them cover from any potential predators or other dangers. But this bird was too far away from the water to strike at prey and completely out in the open.<\/p>\n

Maybe she was just enjoying the view from her elevated and exposed perch, I dunno.<\/p>\n

I was hoping for takeoff and flight shots but that didn’t work out. She spooked when a large flock of pelicans took off from a nearby pond and flew almost directly over her. As those lumbering behemoths took off and attempted to gain elevation they were making a lot of noise, which intimidated her to the point that she wanted nothing to do with them. Naturally, I was distracted by the pelicans so I missed her takeoff.<\/p>\n

The canal where she was perched was on the west side of the one-way road and in that area the road goes generally south so she was on the “wrong side”, the passenger side, of my pickup. When that happens I normally can’t photograph any birds I find on that canal because I can’t get out of my pickup and hand hold my lens. It’s too big, heavy and awkward, especially given my bad back.<\/p>\n

But on this occasion my “gadget” came to my rescue.<\/p>\n

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I’m still calling it my gadget for short but it’s really a “stake pocket lens support” that I built for just such an occasion. Without it I’d have had virtually no chance of getting sharp shots of the heron.<\/p>\n

I don’t use it often but when I need it, nothing else will do. It’s that or just drive right on by.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

My “gadget” saves my bacon. (3 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142543,"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":[338,5,6,334,1126],"tags":[49,716,1127,7133,7134,2928,311],"class_list":["post-142542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-oddities","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-black-crowned-night-herons","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-black-crowned-night-heron","tag-nycticorax-nycticorax","tag-snag","tag-stake-pocket-lens-support","tag-unusual-perch","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/black-crowned-night-heron-3519-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-B54","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142542","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=142542"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142589,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142542\/revisions\/142589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}