{"id":144316,"date":"2023-10-06T06:25:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T12:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=144316"},"modified":"2023-10-06T12:09:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T18:09:59","slug":"some-wilsons-snipes-and-a-couple-of-gnat-whiskers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/06\/some-wilsons-snipes-and-a-couple-of-gnat-whiskers\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Wilson’s Snipes And A Couple Of Gnat Whiskers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning I found more Wilson’s Snipes next to one of the canals at Bear River MBR. Typical of snipes, they almost never allowed me clear shots of them but they gave me enough to make me glad I got the photos.<\/p>\n

I’d estimate that there were about a half dozen of them but it was hard to tell because one or two birds would often fly off with others flying in to take their place. They were usually so hidden it was difficult to keep an accurate count of them.<\/p>\n

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Typically they were at least partially hidden by grass. Sometimes completely hidden.<\/p>\n

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While I was there, this is as far out into the water as any of them ever went.<\/p>\n

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This snipe came in close, which allowed me to see something I’d never noticed in the species before. It’s minor, but stuff like this catches my eye.<\/p>\n

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They have a series of tiny, slanted and parallel grooves on their upper mandible. Each one is so small it’s barely the size of a gnat’s whisker. They must have some function or reason for being there but when I tried to research it I came up empty.<\/p>\n

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When the same bird turned away from me it demonstrated distal rhynchokinesis<\/a><\/span><\/span> at the tip of its bill.<\/p>\n

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This is about as close as I came to getting an unobstructed view of any of them.<\/p>\n

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The only time I caught one of them feeding with its long, probing bill.<\/p>\n

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Almost immediately after I took this photo I heard at least one nearby snipe take off. When that happens, others often join them in flight. I hoped to get takeoff or flight shots of this bird so at this point I fired off a burst of photos and hoped to get lucky.<\/p>\n

A flight shot of a snipe is something I’ve only dreamed of.<\/p>\n

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This is the last shot I got before I took my finger off of the shutter button and ended the burst. As you can see, the snipe has crouched just prior to pushing off and taking flight. If my burst had lasted another microsecond I’d likely have my takeoff or flight shot.<\/p>\n

I missed getting it by another gnat’s whisker.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note: <\/em><\/p>\n

“Gnat’s whisker” is a Montana-ism I grew up with. It’s a term my dad would use to indicate a small distance or any small amount, usually while he was working on farm machinery or, in later years, in his wood shop.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I found this definition of gnat’s whisker online. It’s probably meant tongue in cheek but that’s perfect because the term is used that way too. “A gnat’s whisker is a measure of distance used by engineers, being rather less than you can see with the naked eye and definitely less than a smidgeon.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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More Wilson’s Snipes at Bear River MBR yesterday morning. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144329,"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":[5,334,392,876],"tags":[49,136,875,7169,7170,2179,311,874],"class_list":["post-144316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-wilsons-snipe-shore-birds","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-feeding","tag-gallinago-delicata","tag-gnats-whisker","tag-grooves-on-bill","tag-rhynchokinesis","tag-utah-2","tag-wilsons-snipe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/wilsons-snipe-8896-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-BxG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144316","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=144316"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144377,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144316\/revisions\/144377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}