![\"willet](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/willet-9953-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWith its wings folded the plump, drab-plumaged\u00a0Willet is brown and inconspicuous but a remarkable transformation takes place when those wings are opened.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I photographed this Willet two days ago on Antelope Island.\u00a0 While I like this image, there’s not much remarkable about the bird and I have many photos of the species at rest\u00a0so at this point I had removed my teleconverter and changed camera settings to give me plenty of room and\u00a0shutter speed for possible take-off.\u00a0 I use this strategy with Willets as often as possible because if I can catch the wings in the up or down position (as opposed to mostly horizontal) I’m a huge fan of the strikingly bold black and white wing plumage patterns that are revealed in flight.<\/p>\n On this day I got lucky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I caught the wings down and forward just as the bird lifted off.\u00a0 They have an unusually broad white wing-stripe\u00a0bordered in black that runs across the primaries and secondaries\u00a0and gives them distinctively flashing wing-beats.\u00a0 This flight posture combined with one of those spring Antelope Island backgrounds that I like so much made this image one of my recent favorites.<\/p>\n Every time I see this instantaneous transformation I think of the Willet as an avian chameleon.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"willet](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/willet-9963-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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