{"id":20691,"date":"2013-12-15T06:45:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T13:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=20691"},"modified":"2013-12-15T06:45:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T13:45:50","slug":"several-sparrow-species-in-frost-and-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/15\/several-sparrow-species-in-frost-and-snow\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Sparrow Species In Frost And Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In my area most sparrow species aren’t easy to approach or catch out in the open\u00a0for most of the year but when it’s very cold and they decide it’s time to\u00a0begin their communal morning\u00a0feeding routine they become much braver souls.\u00a0 Earlier this week I photographed three species of sparrows as they harvested seeds from their frost-covered parent plants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When the sparrows first began to feed, literally every twig was frost-covered (like the\u00a0twig on the left)\u00a0but their frenzied activities knocked the frost off of some of the twigs and seed clusters.\u00a0 This Song Sparrow was in the process of plucking the seeds in front of its face.<\/p>\n

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\"dark-eyed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Here a Dark-eyed Junco has landed on a frosty branch for a moment as it contemplates its next food source.<\/p>\n

Confession:\u00a0 Earlier this week I shot for two days with my IS (image stabilization) inadvertently turned off and didn’t notice it (embarrassing!).\u00a0 I couldn’t figure out why most of\u00a0my shots weren’t as sharp as usual and feared a malfunctioning camera or lens.\u00a0 I was much relieved when I finally figured out the problem.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, that’s why this junco isn’t tack sharp.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But it was the plucky juvenile White-crowned Sparrows who put on the best show.\u00a0 Rabbitbrush seeds seem to be one of their favorite foods and they were very active as they browsed the frost and snow-covered plants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-crowned<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Sometimes there was so much seed “fluff” stuck to their faces that their bills could barely be seen.\u00a0 This bird was one of the more dainty eaters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-crowned<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Their\u00a0twitchy feeding movements made it difficult to capture interesting poses but I liked the curve of the left wing on this one.\u00a0 Normally I’d crop to include more room on the left but there was another bird there (you can see its shadow on the snow in the background).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/1600, f\/8, ISO 400, 100-400 @ 370mm, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I decided to see if I could get two birds sharp with catch lights in the eyes of both birds so I switched lenses for more depth of field and got several shots that turned out pretty well.\u00a0 When they’re feeding and usually have their faces buried in the rabbitbrush it isn’t easy.<\/p>\n

It’s finally starting to warm up a little around here (+32 yesterday) so some of the snow is beginning to melt but there still should be occasional opportunities for morning hoar frost.\u00a0 I always look forward to that.<\/p>\n

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

In my area most sparrow species aren’t easy to approach or catch out in the open for most of the year but when it’s very cold and they decide it’s time to begin their communal morning feeding routine they become much braver souls. Earlier this week I photographed three species of sparrows as they harvested seeds from their frost-covered parent plants.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20696,"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":[4,334,392,523,350],"tags":[520,136,521,1424,286,290,325,855],"class_list":["post-20691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-song-sparrows","category-white-crowned-sparrows","tag-dark-eyed-junco","tag-feeding","tag-frost","tag-rabbit-brush","tag-snow","tag-song-sparrow","tag-white-crowned-sparrow","tag-winter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/white-crowned-sparrow-7895-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5nJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20691","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=20691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}