{"id":14749,"date":"2013-04-27T06:32:48","date_gmt":"2013-04-27T12:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=14749"},"modified":"2013-04-27T06:32:48","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T12:32:48","slug":"chukars-descending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/27\/chukars-descending\/","title":{"rendered":"Chukars Descending"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve mentioned before how very reluctant Chukars are to fly.\u00a0 They much prefer to scurry away through the grasses whenever they feel insecure or threatened.<\/p>\n

And that reluctance also applies when they’re ready to leave an elevated perch.\u00a0 They’ll nearly always find a way to scramble down a big rock rather than fly from it like most other birds would.\u00a0 That tendency was demonstrated to me twice yesterday morning on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We found this bird warming its back in the warmth of the rising sun when we first came onto the island.\u00a0 It posed for a minute or so and then decided that it was time to join its comrades in the grasses below the rock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally it chose to slip-slide down the steep rock face rather than fly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When it\u00a0was reasonably\u00a0close to the ground it looked for a suitable landing-place among the grasses…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0and hopped down, disappearing into the grass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Two hours later (the light is cooler now) we found another cooperative Chukar.\u00a0 This one was facing me on a much\u00a0larger rock than the previous bird.\u00a0 It posed on one leg for a while…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0but eventually turned and\u00a0began looking for a safe way down off the rock.\u00a0 Once the first part of the route had been “planned”…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0it began to negotiate its descent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Then some more “planning” before…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

jumping down to the last rock.<\/p>\n

I sometimes call these birds “rockhoppers” – for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

I was disappointed that I lost focus on the bird for several shots as it came down but I thought there were enough sharp ones in the sequence to\u00a0illustrate the behavior.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019ve mentioned before how very reluctant Chukars are to fly. They much prefer to scurry away through the grasses whenever they feel insecure or threatened.<\/p>\n

And that reluctance also applies when they\u2019re ready to leave an elevated perch. They\u2019ll nearly always find a way to scramble down a big rock rather than fly from it like most other birds would. That tendency was demonstrated to me twice yesterday morning on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[3,334,352,395],"tags":[26,31,82,1406,1230,266,311],"class_list":["post-14749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-chukars","category-miscellaneous","tag-alectoris-chukar","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-chukar","tag-fly","tag-jump","tag-rockhopper","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3PT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14749","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=14749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}