![\"loggerhead](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/loggerhead-shrike-0718-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThese young birds hang out in the same vicinity but away from each other while they’re waiting for the parents to bring them food.\u00a0 But when they spot an adult bringing in a snack they often come in very close to each other which brings out intense competition.\u00a0 Here one has snagged the toe of its sibling in an effort to drive it away just before the food is delivered.\u00a0 That sharp, hooked bill\u00a0would hurt…<\/p>\n
I’m often amazed at how fast this kind of action occurs and usually don’t even know what I’ve photographed until I view it at home on the computer (which is exactly what happened here).<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I photographed this juvenile in a deep thicket two days ago.\u00a0 It had been banded as a chick\u00a0by my friends at Westminster College’s Great Salt Lake Institute<\/a>.\u00a0 The GSLI is doing a multi-year study on how mercury contaminants may be moving up the food chain of the Great Salt Lake from polluter, to lake, to microorganisms, to brine flies, to spiders, to birds and beyond.\u00a0 It involves banding spider-eating birds (the spiders on the island are huge, incredibly numerous and gobbled up voraciously by the shrikes),\u00a0following their movements and\u00a0comparing mercury levels in their blood (from blood samples) to those of other birds that don’t live near the Great Salt Lake.\u00a0 I’ll gladly pay the price of photographing an occasional banded bird if this study yields useful results.\u00a0 I wish the GSLI success in their efforts.<\/p>\n Ok, back to the bird.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The chances of me getting usable shots through the bramble of twigs was slim but as usual I fired away anyway and was able to catch the moment of lift-off.\u00a0\u00a0In this shot the\u00a0head’s not as sharp as I’d like but I decided to include it as part of the sequence.<\/p>\n I figured that after take-off I’d only get a blurred bird and sharp twigs because autofocus would lock on to some of the cluttered branches in the background (and foreground) but…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n this time I got lucky and was able to get not only a\u00a0fairly sharp bird but I\u00a0didn’t clip anything either.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n