{"id":22487,"date":"2014-03-04T06:08:40","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=22487"},"modified":"2014-03-04T06:08:40","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T13:08:40","slug":"high-stepping-far-falling-chukars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/04\/high-stepping-far-falling-chukars\/","title":{"rendered":"High-stepping, Far-falling Chukars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The roly-poly Chukar doesn’t look very athletic but they’re incredibly agile while maneuvering on the rocks they like to perch on this time of year.<\/p>\n

For most of the year Chukars spend much of their time skulking around in the vegetation but during spring and early summer males in particular are more approachable as they perch high on rocks and boulders, calling enthusiastically and watching over their mate.\u00a0 When they decide to come down off their\u00a0elevated\u00a0perches they scramble down the rocky slopes with impressive agility.\u00a0 I appreciate static, posed\u00a0images of birds as much as anyone but I tend to prefer shots where there’s some kind\u00a0of behavior or action.\u00a0 These\u00a0photos scratch that itch for me, even though one of them is quite soft.<\/p>\n

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\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Four days ago this Chukar had been perched on a boulder, warming itself as the sun rose.\u00a0 When it decided to leave the\u00a0rock it scrambled down the steep slope\u00a0and I caught this leg pose that appealed to me because it revealed that their legs are actually longer than they usually appear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But then the boulder dropped off vertically and the bird had to make a decision – jump or fly.\u00a0 It usually has to be a long ways down before they’ll fly and this bird chose to jump.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As usual it didn’t even open its wings on the way down and it was quite a drop.\u00a0 In situations like this I sometimes expect the poor bird to end up like Humpty Dumpty but it landed with dignity and\u00a0aplomb and then calmly began foraging.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I didn’t have enough shutter speed to get the bird sharp but I think you still get the idea…<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Just over an hour later I found another Chukar preparing to come down off its lofty perch.\u00a0 This time I didn’t get any\u00a0photos as it left the boulder but I liked the foot position in this shot.<\/p>\n

I’ve had a “Chukar drought” all winter so now that they’re active and somewhat approachable again I can’t resist posting them occasionally.\u00a0 I’ll try not to overdo it…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The roly-poly Chukar doesn’t look very athletic but they’re incredibly agile while maneuvering on the rocks they like to perch on this time of year.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22489,"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":[26,31,282,311],"class_list":["post-22487","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-shutter-speed","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/chukar-4639-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5QH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22487","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=22487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}