![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/great-blue-heron-7124-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"great-blue-heron-7124-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nOn Tuesday morning I made my first trip to the mountains this year. At that elevation I knew it would still be a little too early in the season for many birds and I was right. But I was itching to go and check on things up there, so off I went.<\/p>\n
Results were mixed, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n
Many readers seem to enjoy my “potpourri”-themed posts and that’s what this one will be – photos of several species, some significantly better than others, all taken on the same morning and presented in the order they were taken. An illustrated avian travelogue of sorts.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n By the time I found this Great Blue Heron in a stream I was pretty discouraged. I’d already been looking for birds for nearly 40 minutes with no luck at all. The heron was far away and in fairly harsh light so I’m not particularly happy with any of my photos of this bird.<\/p>\n My only hope was flight shots but the heron didn’t take off until it was spooked by an approaching huge cement truck. So it took off away from the truck, and away from me. So much for the heron.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I normally don’t photograph peacocks (Indian Peafowl) on those rare occasions when I see them but with the bird in this light against that nearly black background, how could I resist? The peacock was in a barnyard with the deep shade of the barn in the background. We can just make out one of the barn windows in the upper right of the frame. I like his iridescent colors against the black, almost featureless background. Those blues are intense.<\/p>\n After the peacock I drove slowly on the dirt road for 46 minutes before getting another bird in my viewfinder. It was discouraging.<\/p>\n I was within five minutes of getting on the road to home before I came upon a treasure trove of birds in a mixed clump of bushes and small trees that included several birds of four different species. I struck out on the Yellow Warblers but I got at least a few photos of the other three.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n But dang they were hard to get clear shots of. Some of the bushes hadn’t leafed out yet but nearly all of the birds stayed partially or mostly buried in thickets of bare branches and twigs, like this male Western Tanager. In this shot I like the colorful lichens on the branches almost as much as the partially blocked tanager.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I spent a full ten minutes trying to catch this male Black-headed Grosbeak out in the open and only got two photos of him I like, out of the 180 I took. He was very active as he foraged for food in the leafless bush and except for those two shots there were always twigs in front of him. Usually lots of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I did manage to catch him upside down once, just after he’d bitten off a piece of what looks like emerging leaf. When I took this photo I believe his nictitating membrane was partially closed, which made the catch light in his eye look a little funky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/5000, 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 Finally, this Western Kingbird was the most cooperative bird I found all morning. ‘He’ was perched in one of the bushes in the clump that was fully leafed out so in my first shots of him he was mostly blocked by green leaves. I had no choice but to pull forward in an attempt to get a clear look at him. I was almost sure that he’d take off when I got that close but he didn’t even twitch with me less than 20′ from him. He seemed to be trying to stare me down so he didn’t give me many poses but since he allowed me so close I can forgive him for that.<\/p>\n One of the several reasons I like this shot is because it’s so different from most of my Western Kingbird photos. Usually I find this species in much drier habitats, with them perched on fenceposts or barbed wire or high on utility poles and wires. I very rarely photograph them in a leafy green setting like this.<\/p>\n So that was my morning. If it hadn’t been for that single birdy clump of bushes I’d have been damn near skunked. You can bet I’ll be checking out those bushes again.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six photos of five species.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/peacock-7188-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"peacock-7188-ron-dudley\\"")
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