{"id":168005,"date":"2025-04-25T05:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T11:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=168005"},"modified":"2025-04-25T07:25:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T13:25:20","slug":"western-meadowlark-hunting-success-on-antelope-islands-fire-scar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/25\/western-meadowlark-hunting-success-on-antelope-islands-fire-scar\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Meadowlark – Hunting Success On Antelope Island’s Fire Scar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, what I hope birds will do, they do. Or very nearly so.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 1250, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Four days ago I found this Western Meadowlark probing for food amongst a small pile of rocks in the fire scar of last July’s wildfire on Antelope Island. It’s wonderful to see that blackened scar recovering so nicely.<\/p>\n

The meadowlark was close to me on a steep hillside, so although it may look like I was shooting down on ‘him’ (especially in the photo below), my lens was actually aimed pretty close to level.<\/p>\n

I was hoping he would find a big fat juicy worm and eat it while I had him in my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 1250, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But what he plucked out of the ground next to one of the rocks was an insect larva instead of a worm (worms aren’t insects). When he tugged on it, the larva sprang almost straight up, providing a rather unusual image when combined with the atypical perspective that looks like I was shooting almost straight down on the bird. I wasn’t. The hillside was that steep.<\/p>\n

He didn’t catch a fat ol’ worm but what he caught was close enough and he gobbled it down quickly. We were both satisfied.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS – In case you’re curious, this is an aerial photo of last year’s fire in progress. The vehicle I’ve circled in red is at almost the exact location I was when I took these meadowlark photos from my pickup.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Late addendum: I just now saw my first two hummingbirds, and my first house fly, of the season – almost simultaneously. Gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Sometimes, what I hope birds will do, they do. (2 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168006,"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":[334,370],"tags":[31,7795,6495,669,311,7794],"class_list":["post-168005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-fire-scar","tag-insect-larva","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-utah-2","tag-western-meadowlark-with-prey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/western-meadowlark-0075-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-HHL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168005","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=168005"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168031,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168005\/revisions\/168031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}