{"id":19380,"date":"2013-10-19T05:56:04","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T11:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19380"},"modified":"2013-10-19T05:56:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T11:56:04","slug":"chukar-calling-on-one-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/19\/chukar-calling-on-one-foot\/","title":{"rendered":"Chukar Calling On One Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chukars continue to be one of my\u00a0preferred\u00a0subjects during the winter and spring due to their distinctive and colorful plumage and their often comical behavior.\u00a0 They are abundant\u00a0on Antelope Island and even somewhat approachable there – at least in comparison to their skittish and wily ways elsewhere (hunters consider them to be among the most challenging of upland game species).<\/p>\n

During summer and early fall I seldom photograph them because of their extended molt which makes them less than ideal subjects (and that’s a huge understatement).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I found this bird last May as it attempted to warm up and wake up in the early morning sun.\u00a0 Unlike the rest of the year, during spring Chukars spend much of their time calling from elevated perches, usually rocks.\u00a0 This bird amused me because it appeared to be quite sleepy\u00a0so when it would hear another\u00a0Chukar calling off in the distance it\u00a0could\u00a0barely summon up the enthusiasm to respond in kind.\u00a0 Here it maintained its one-footed\u00a0stance as it called back briefly and then promptly closed its eyes again.\u00a0 I like the one curled toe peeking out of the lower belly feathers.\u00a0 Some may not particularly appreciate the\u00a0excrement\u00a0below the bird but hey, poop happens…<\/p>\n

For anyone interested, here’s a link to their call<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I find it interesting that Chukars, a\u00a0species introduced to North America for hunting purposes,\u00a0are heavy consumers of cheatgrass – a noxious weed that has invaded our western grasslands and\u00a0displaced native plants.\u00a0 They eat both the\u00a0cheatgrass seeds and the green shoots.\u00a0 In fact the relationship between Chukars and cheatgrass is so intertwined that game managers believe the Chukar introduction in North America would have failed without the grass.<\/p>\n

What a tangled web we weave…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Chukars continue to be one of my preferred subjects during the winter and spring due to their distinctive and colorful plumage and their often comical behavior. They are abundant on Antelope Island and even somewhat approachable there – at least in comparison to their skittish and wily ways elsewhere (hunters consider them to be among the most challenging of upland game species).<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19381,"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":[3,334,352],"tags":[26,31,1335,1702,82,1701,831,749,1700],"class_list":["post-19380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-chukars","tag-alectoris-chukar","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-call","tag-cheatgrass","tag-chukar","tag-exotic-species","tag-introduced-species","tag-molt","tag-sound"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/chukar-1800-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-52A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19380","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=19380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}