{"id":14959,"date":"2013-05-03T05:26:50","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T11:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=14959"},"modified":"2013-05-03T05:26:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T11:26:50","slug":"antelope-island-a-meadowlark-mecca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/03\/antelope-island-a-meadowlark-mecca\/","title":{"rendered":"Antelope Island – A Meadowlark Mecca"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antelope Island is still teeming with Western Meadowlarks and will be for the rest of the summer.\u00a0 Most are uncooperative but because there’s so many of them and they announce their position so forcefully with their song I occasionally find one\u00a0who forgets to fly off as I approach.\u00a0 Each of these images was taken within the last month.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The classic meadowlark singing pose.\u00a0 Even during spring and summer the dominant colors on the island are shades of brown and if the background is far enough away from the bird it shows little splotchiness or detail – an effect that appeals to many but not all.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The rabbitbrush stems from the previous\u00a0growing season\u00a0remain for many months the following year and are a favorite meadowlark perch but that’s problematic for the photographer because they’re so thick that they usually obscure much of the bird.\u00a0 This image is an exception.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Meet Minerva.\u00a0 Though most Meadowlarks are skittish, individual birds do have favorite perches and when one of those preferred perches is close to the road they can become acclimated to vehicles to some degree.\u00a0 This bird has taken that inclination to the extreme.\u00a0 Her favorite perch is an ugly sign very close to\u00a0a road with quite a bit of traffic.\u00a0 Finding “her” there (I really don’t know the sex, for\u00a0sure) is so reliable that we’ve taken to calling her Minerva and greeting her as we pass.\u00a0 She lets me get so close that I occasionally fire off a few head shots as I go by.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4,\u00a0natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The white Tintic Quartzite rocks on the north end of the island aren’t my favorite perches because they’re so bright but one advantage of them is that it’s possible to get a clear shot of the entire bird when you’re lucky enough to get a wing stretch.\u00a0\u00a0 If this bird had been on rabbitbrush or sagebrush its wing would most likely have been largely hidden.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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

Another common natural perch on the island that can give a clear view of the bird is all the old sunflower stems from previous years.\u00a0 Even though the sunflowers are annuals, the dead stems often stay standing for several years and are heavily used as perches by meadowlarks, shrikes and even Burrowing Owls.<\/p>\n

I seldom do any cloning on any of my images but must admit that I was tempted to vanquish the out-of-focus stem at the lower right.\u00a0 In the end I resisted the temptation because it feels dishonest to clone (even if I disclose it)\u00a0and because I thought the image would look too clean (sterile) , almost like a set-up shot which I detest.<\/p>\n

I’m heading to the island again this morning.\u00a0 Looking forward to seeing (and hearing)\u00a0Minerva again…<\/p>\n

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

Antelope Island is still teeming with Western Meadowlarks and will be for the rest of the summer. Most are uncooperative but there are exceptions. <\/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":[3,334,370],"tags":[865,1424,1425,669,298,305,323,809],"class_list":["post-14959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-cloning","tag-rabbit-brush","tag-set-up","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-sunflower","tag-tintic-quartzite","tag-western-meadowlark","tag-wing-stretch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3Th","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14959","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=14959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}