{"id":23181,"date":"2014-04-11T04:48:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T10:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23181"},"modified":"2014-04-11T04:48:24","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T10:48:24","slug":"my-first-of-year-sage-thrasher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/11\/my-first-of-year-sage-thrasher\/","title":{"rendered":"My “First Of Year” Sage Thrasher"},"content":{"rendered":"

The original name for the Sage Thrasher was “Mountain Mockingbird”.\u00a0 I can see why.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sage<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve been seeing these thrashers on Antelope Island for a couple of weeks now but decent photos of them have eluded me until yesterday morning when we found this bird that cooperated for a few very brief seconds.\u00a0 This is a background color that I only seem to get on the island.\u00a0\u00a0The source of the color is last year’s moth mullein stalks far away in the background.\u00a0 I regularly cuss the mullein stalks because they make it so difficult to get clear shots of birds and other critters on the\u00a0ground but I do\u00a0appreciate this somewhat unusual color in the bokeh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sage<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I also enjoy how well the background color matches that of the eye of the bird.\u00a0 This thrasher\u00a0didn’t\u00a0give me much pose variety – a slight turn of the head and tail and a bit of a fluff was about it so I used a vertical composition for this image.<\/p>\n

Entire populations of Sage Thrashers are regularly eliminated when sagebrush rangeland is converted to other uses and there’s more and more of that kind of thing going on in the west\u00a0these days.\u00a0 Just this spring we’ve noticed a large area of sagebrush habitat\u00a0at the foot of the Stansbury Mountains that has very recently been completely cleared of sage (typically done by dragging massive, heavy chains between two Caterpillars or tractors).<\/p>\n

And more habitat\u00a0bites the dust.<\/p>\n

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

The original name for the Sage Thrasher was “Mountain Mockingbird”. I can see why.<\/p>\n

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