{"id":144766,"date":"2023-10-16T06:18:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T12:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=144766"},"modified":"2023-10-16T06:52:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T12:52:09","slug":"a-surprise-spotted-towhee-in-fall-colors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/16\/a-surprise-spotted-towhee-in-fall-colors\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surprise Spotted Towhee In Fall Colors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning I finally got out into the field again and I actually found a few birds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This female (I believe) Spotted Towhee was the biggest surprise of the morning. She appeared from out of nowhere while I was photographing other birds near the base of some mountains, in a spot that has been highly productive for birds in years past but this year has been almost completely bird-less every time I’ve been there.<\/p>\n

The setting was in dappled light but she was mostly in shade, which made my shutter speed plummet. After this shot she turned her back to me and flew off but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

she came back a few seconds later and landed on a different perch where she was in somewhat better light. So my SS returned to a range I’m far more comfortable with when I’m photographing birds.<\/p>\n

That long towhee tail can be a bugger to keep in frame when I’m composing my photos in the field.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In this shot she looks like she’s taking off but she was only…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

moving up higher on the same branch to a spot where I had a better view of her. This is the shot I was hoping to get, with her in better light, with almost none of her body blocked by branches, twigs or leaves and with her surrounded by all those fall colors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I sometimes do, I’m providing an alternative composition of the same photo. Personally, I slightly prefer this vertical crop.<\/p>\n

She kept staring at the same spot to her right so I figured she might be thinking about taking off in that direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

She was, and I got lucky when I fired off a short burst and caught her at the beginning of her sideways launch. I wish we could see her right wing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I actually kept her in frame for a flight shot, but just barely. Her wing position is a little wonky, which often happens when birds are taking off. I was happy to get the flight shot but it was the last perched photo that pleased me most, especially when cropped vertically.<\/p>\n

When she took off she left the area but within the next ten minutes or so she came back, twice. But she was always buried in the bushes so I never got another clear shot of her.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Yesterday morning I finally got out into the field again and I actually found a few birds. (7 versions of six photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144767,"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":[334,2473],"tags":[7179,3625,146,2475,2474,2738,311],"class_list":["post-144766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-spotted-towhees","tag-alternative-composition","tag-fall-colors","tag-flight","tag-pipilo-maculatus","tag-spotted-towhee","tag-takeoff","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/spotted-towhee-0006-horizontal-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-BEW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144766","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=144766"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144823,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144766\/revisions\/144823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}