“I got him in my viewfinder but before I could lock focus on him, he took off… This (flight shot) is the first shot I got of him.”<\/em><\/p>\nWell, the very same thing happened two days ago with a Western Meadowlark on Antelope Island. At this rate it’s on its way to becoming the norm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/western-meadowlark-9025b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-meadowlark-9025b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nI got quite a few photos of the meadowlark from this shooting position but most of the time ‘he’ was facing me and at this point I was after takeoff shots. I knew that I had a much better chance of getting takeoff and flight shots I like if I drove further forward, which would put him broadside to me. The light angle would also be better from there and I’d be a little closer to the bird.<\/p>\n
If<\/span> he didn’t take off while I was still driving forward.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/western-meadowlark-9034-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-meadowlark-9034-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nHe didn’t, not quite.<\/p>\n
I reached my desired shooting position, stopped my pickup and got him in my viewfinder, but he took off before I could lock focus on him – just like what the Red-tailed hawk did. This is the first shot I got of him from my new shooting position, so I didn’t get any more photos of him while he was perched.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/western-meadowlark-9035-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-meadowlark-9035-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nI got one more flight shot before he left the frame, although I did have to add canvas on the left to achieve a composition I like.<\/p>\n
I guess I shouldn’t complain. I almost certainly like these two photos better than I would any flight shots I’d have been able to get from my original shooting position. So my strategy worked perfectly, if just barely.<\/p>\n
But I am a little blown away by the timing. It only takes my camera a small fraction of a second to lock focus on my subject after I get it in my viewfinder, so this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. To have it happen two days in a row is unusual.<\/p>\n
Much ado about nothing I suppose, but I did sit up and take notice.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A copycat meadowlark. (3 photos)<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167763,"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":[3,6,334,370],"tags":[7639,31,669,311,7787],"class_list":["post-167759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-adding-canvas-to-a-photo","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-utah-2","tag-western-meadowlark-taking-off-and-in-flight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/western-meadowlark-9034-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-HDN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167759","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=167759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167800,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167759\/revisions\/167800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}