{"id":154700,"date":"2024-02-29T05:38:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T12:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=154700"},"modified":"2024-02-29T06:13:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T13:13:47","slug":"my-most-unusual-meadowlark-takeoff-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/29\/my-most-unusual-meadowlark-takeoff-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"My Most Unusual Meadowlark Takeoff Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Western Meadowlarks have territorial disputes, interesting opportunities are provided for the bird photographer.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday morning some of the meadowlarks on Antelope Island were fighting over breeding territory. I witnessed three such disputes and photographed two of them, or at least tried to. Aerial fighting isn&#8217;t easy to photograph, but attempting to is exciting and fun, with a strong dose of frustration thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n<p>It was a little easier to photograph their unique vertical takeoffs as they would spring straight up from their elevated perch to confront their adversary in flight, which is a typical behavior for fighting meadowlarks in springtime.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"154701\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/29\/my-most-unusual-meadowlark-takeoff-shot\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;5.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;RON DUDLEY&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS R5&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1709133385&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;700&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;800&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.000125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"western meadowlark 7259 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-154701 size-full\" title=\"western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is the meadowlark takeoff shot from yesterday that I like best because the bird&#8217;s launch posture and angle are so different from what we usually see when songbirds take off. It&#8217;s the perfectly vertical angle of takeoff, combined with the long bill of the bird pointing nearly straight up, that makes it different. This bird flew vertically for about three feet before leveling out and pursuing the other meadowlark.<\/p>\n<p>Their brief aerial fight was so frenetic and herky-jerky I lost them in my viewfinder, but I&#8217;ll gladly take this shot as a consolation prize.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday morning some of the meadowlarks on Antelope Island were fighting over breeding territory.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/29\/my-most-unusual-meadowlark-takeoff-shot\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154701,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5,334,394,370],"tags":[31,7366,7367,669,311],"class_list":["post-154700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-fighting-western-meadowlarks","tag-meadowlark-vertical-takeoff","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/western-meadowlark-7259-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Efa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154700"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154749,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154700\/revisions\/154749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}