{"id":161528,"date":"2024-07-10T06:04:53","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T12:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=161528"},"modified":"2024-07-10T07:18:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T13:18:18","slug":"a-sage-thrasher-with-chutzpah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/10\/a-sage-thrasher-with-chutzpah\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sage Thrasher With Chutzpah"},"content":{"rendered":"

I still don’t know if his aggression was directed at me, or his reflection, or both.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Sage Thrashers are usually very shy birds but three days ago in the west desert this presumed male came from out of nowhere and landed on a bush unusually close to me. I immediately had the impression that he was either challenging me or he was intensely curious about me because he just stood there and stared at me for a long time.<\/p>\n

I got all the photos I wanted similar to this one.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

After quite a while he seemed to relax a little and spent some time preening and rousing. Eventually he turned 90\u00b0 on his perch and took off to my left. I tried for takeoff and flight shots but I was a little too slow on the trigger and only got one shot where only half of him was in the frame.<\/p>\n

For several minutes I could see him hopping around in the bushes close to me but I couldn’t get any clear shots of him. And then he just seemed to disappear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, 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 soon he was back and this time he landed almost too close to me. While he was here he seemed to be laser-focused on me, to the point that I began to wonder if he could see his own reflection in my lens. I’ve had that happen before, with similar behavioral results.<\/p>\n

The following four sequential photos are as soft as mush but I’m including them in an attempt to document what happened next.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He took off straight at me.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Accelerating. With him coming head-on as fast as he was, my active focus point didn’t even try to keep him in focus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Still coming straight at me.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At this point I was beginning to wonder if he was going to land on, or strike, the end of my lens. Or me.<\/p>\n

He was only about a foot from the end of my lens when he veered off to his right and landed on the bed-rail of my pickup right behind me. I could hear his little feet on my bed-rail but I couldn’t see him because the front and rear head-rests were in the way and my side mirror was pushed forward, as it always is when I’m photographing birds.<\/p>\n

Suddenly he landed on my passenger’s side, side mirror. I had that window down because it was beginning to get hot so it was almost like he was inside my pickup with me. I actually thought he might join me inside but he didn’t. While he was on the mirror he paid no attention at all to the mirror or his reflection in it, he just stared at me. He was so close I could almost have reached out and touched him.<\/p>\n

At that point I decided to try to photograph him with my phone, which was on my lens caddy right next to me. But what I expected to happen, did happen. While I was raising my phone he took off and I never saw him again.<\/p>\n

I’m still not sure if his aggressive behavior was directed at me, or his reflection(s) or both. But either way it was a memorable experience for this bird photographer, especially from a Sage Thrasher.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

I still don’t know if his aggression was directed at me, or his reflection, or both. (7 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161529,"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":[334,395,379],"tags":[7526,7527,6410,7528,1535,1501,311,533],"class_list":["post-161528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-sage-thrashers","tag-aggressive-behavior-from-a-sage-thrasher","tag-attacking-reflection-in-lens","tag-attacking-reflection-in-mirror","tag-chutzpah","tag-oreoscoptes-montanus","tag-rousing","tag-utah-2","tag-west-desert"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/sage-thrasher-6099-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-G1i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161528","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=161528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161563,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161528\/revisions\/161563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}