![\"williamson's](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/williamsons-sapsucker-5977-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAt this point in my photography “career” it’s \u00a0unusual for me to get a new lifer but lately I’ve been on a roll.<\/p>\n
I’ve said before that I consider myself to be a bird photographer rather than a birder because I don’t keep the myriad “lists” that birders typically do.\u00a0 That said, I’m always aware when I’m photographing a new (for me)\u00a0species so I guess I do keep an unofficial list of sorts – one of bird species I’ve photographed.\u00a0 I don’t know the total number on that “list” but I’m keenly aware if I’m photographing a new species.\u00a0 To make my list, certain conditions apply – it must be a positive ID, I must have photos of it and those photos must be of reasonable quality – in other words good enough to be “keepers”.\u00a0\u00a0 As you’ll see below I sometimes struggle in determining whether or not an image meets those conditions – when an image is of marginal quality it can be extra-tempting to keep it\u00a0if it’s of a new species.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0first three (and a half) lifers in those eight days were all\u00a0taken on May 29th and 30th\u00a0near the border of Idaho and\u00a0southwest Montana last week.<\/p>\n
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The first on my list of new lifers is the Williamson’s Sapsuckers I posted about recently.\u00a0 This is the male at one of its nest holes in the\u00a0“glory hole aspen”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I found this pose to be\u00a0at least slightly interesting because of the atypical head turn.<\/p>\n
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![\"williamson's](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/williamsons-sapsucker-6035-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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This is the female sapsucker at the location on the tree that was scarred when someone cut their initials and the date in the bark of the tree in 2004.\u00a0 I’ve facetiously counted the sapsuckers as “one and a half” on my list because unlike other woodpeckers the sexes of this species are so very different from each other and I was able to photograph both of them (in reality I’d only count these birds as one species of course).<\/p>\n
But there was also a flurry of activity at this aspen from other species and that provided another lifer for me…<\/p>\n
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![\"mountain](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/mountain-chickadee-4750-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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the\u00a0Mountain Chickadee (note the white “eyebrow” stripe that distinguishes it from the all-black cap of the Black-capped Chickadee).\u00a0 I’m a little surprised that this species was new to my list but I’d never before been able to get images of them good enough to keep.<\/p>\n
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![\"least](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/least-flycatcher-5668-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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I was delighted to add the feisty Least Flycatcher to my list when this tiny bird flitted into range of my lens and perched on a conifer.\u00a0 This bird was right on the edge of its known breeding territory in northeast Clark County, Idaho.<\/p>\n
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![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/american-dipper-7196-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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The last new\u00a0species on my lifer list during those\u00a0eight days\u00a0is the American Dipper.\u00a0 I encountered this bird at Cascade Springs\u00a0on June 5 after my return home to Utah.\u00a0 This image is a perfect example of one that is only marginally a keeper – the\u00a0image was overexposed in-camera and the head isn’t very sharp (I was handholding my 500mm lens for this image and the lighting was contrasty).\u00a0 In the end I only kept the image because\u00a0the\u00a0dipper had prey in its beak and the bird filled most of the frame with only minor cropping.<\/p>\n
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I thought I’d conclude with an image that’s an example of one of the reasons I consider myself to be a bird photographer rather than a birder (the philosophy of one group is no better than that of the other, they’re only different).<\/p>\n
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![\"ash-throated](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ash-throated-flycatcher.jpg\")
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I took this image of an Ash-throated Flycatcher two days ago at the base of the Stansbury Mountains in Utah.\u00a0 It’s a new species for me but the image is of very poor quality, partly because it’s a humongous crop (4% of the original image).\u00a0 If I were a birder this species would make my lifer list (as long as it was a positive ID).<\/p>\n
But I’m not and it doesn’t.<\/p>\n
Virtually all of my bird photography is done in the intermountain region of Utah, Montana, Idaho and occasionally Wyoming and I don’t deliberately search out new species – my primary goal is photographs of acceptable quality or better. \u00a0 If I traveled to exotic (for me) locations it would be relatively easy to add this many lifers in a short period of time but I thought it was pretty unusual for me to get this many lifers in such a short time\u00a0span in locales I’ve photographed for years.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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At this point in my photography “career” it’s unusual for me to get a new lifer but lately I’ve been on a roll.<\/p>\n