{"id":18570,"date":"2013-09-20T04:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T10:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18570"},"modified":"2013-09-19T18:36:22","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T00:36:22","slug":"a-serendipitous-buffalo-bird-and-a-bison-cow-and-calf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/20\/a-serendipitous-buffalo-bird-and-a-bison-cow-and-calf\/","title":{"rendered":"A Serendipitous “Buffalo Bird” And A Bison Cow And Calf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many in the birding world don’t like Brown-headed Cowbirds much, for reasons that have been bandied about for years.\u00a0 But I have no problem with them, especially when one of them quite unexpectedly pops up into one of my images in a rather dramatic way.<\/p>\n<p>Cowbirds were long called “Buffalo Birds” for their habit of following the huge, nomadic bison herds across western North America as they fed on the insects stirred up by the moving herds.\u00a0 As a western history buff I probably romanticize such\u00a0scenes in my mind and enjoy it\u00a0more than most when I actually witness anything\u00a0similar.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18571\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/20\/a-serendipitous-buffalo-bird-and-a-bison-cow-and-calf\/bison-4784-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,751\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"8","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS 7D","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1369124797","copyright":"","focal_length":"400","iso":"500","shutter_speed":"0.0005","title":""}\" data-image-title=\"bison 4784 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley-300x250.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18571\" alt=\"bison 4784 ron dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"751\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley-300x250.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley-150x125.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley-400x333.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, 100-400 @ 400mm<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This past May I was photographing a herd of bison on Antelope Island when a cowbird that I didn’t even know was there flushed up in front of this\u00a0bison\u00a0cow and calf as they ambled along.\u00a0 It’s an image I like for a variety of reasons but largely because I think the bird adds interest and historical perspective.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <em>Serendipity: – a happy accident,\u00a0 pleasant surprise, or fortunate mistake. Specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not\u00a0searching for it<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Some of the reasons I think the image is serendipitous:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">I didn’t expect the bird and I think it added to the image<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>the cowbird is in silhouette from the shadow of the cow\u00a0– which I believe works best in this case (and I’m generally not\u00a0a fan of silhouettes)<\/li>\n<li>the bird is in an<em> almost<\/em> perfect position between the head of the cow and the out of focus foreground plants<\/li>\n<li>the wing position of the bird couldn’t be better, especially in silhouette<\/li>\n<li>exposure, light and position of the bison are all good<\/li>\n<li>all three subjects are sharp<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Yes, I wish the\u00a0out of focus vegetation in the foreground\u00a0at lower left wasn’t there.\u00a0 But it was and I can live with it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I’m probably\u00a0over-analyzing\u00a0here and it may be that this image appeals only to me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">But it does, so I thought I’d post it…<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many in the birding world don’t like Brown-headed Cowbirds much, for reasons that have been bandied about for years. But I have no problem with them, especially when one of them quite unexpectedly pops up into one of my images in a rather dramatic way.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/20\/a-serendipitous-buffalo-bird-and-a-bison-cow-and-calf\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18571,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,334,347],"tags":[56,780,792,1661],"class_list":["post-18570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-bison-mammals","tag-bison","tag-brown-headed-cowbird","tag-serendipity","tag-silhouette"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bison-4784-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4Pw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}