{"id":2514,"date":"2011-08-05T16:51:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T22:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=2514"},"modified":"2011-08-05T17:09:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T23:09:55","slug":"the-shot-that-broke-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/05\/the-shot-that-broke-my-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shot That Broke My Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a range fire on the north end of Antelope Island yesterday that forced managers to clear out all campers from the campgrounds.\u00a0 So when we arrived early this morning the campgrounds were empty and this young coyote was hunting on the edge of Bridger Bay Campground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote-9198\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canon 7D, 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, EV +0.33<\/em><\/p>\n

Normally the coyotes on the island are elusive and difficult to approach but I believe this to be a young one so it didn’t seem\u00a0overly concerned about us.\u00a0 Besides, he\/she obviously already had a quarry in sight deep in the grass and wasn’t about to let us interfere with the hunt.\u00a0 In this image the coyote has just spotted something of interest in the grass some distance in front of “him”.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"coyote-9202\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canon 7D, 1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33<\/em><\/p>\n

Here the coyote begins to make his stalk.\u00a0 At first he didn’t crouch down so that he could see what ever it was he was after\u00a0through the grass.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"coyote-9205\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Canon 7D, 1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33<\/em><\/p>\n

But as he got closer (both to the potential prey and to me) he began to crouch down, almost in a cat-like manner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At this point I suspected that something dramatic might happen and tried to prepare myself for “the shot”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The most common prey of coyotes on the island is voles but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a vole because the coyote was too far away from his point of interest when he first spotted it to have seen it or heard it from that distance.\u00a0 I thought it was going to be a rabbit – both jackrabbits and cottontails are very common around that campground.\u00a0 Vole or rabbit, I knew I wouldn’t get a good shot of the moment of capture (if it happened) because the grass was just too tall at ground level.\u00a0 I was hoping to get a shot or two with the prey in the mouth when the coyote raised his head with its prize\u00a0in his jaws.<\/p>\n

I could kick myself for not thinking of the possibility that the prey was a bird that would flush up in front of the coyote!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote-9208\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Canon 7D, 1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33<\/p>\n

This is the shot that broke my heart.\u00a0 If I had anticipated that the prey might be a bird that would flush I’d have allowed for more room above the coyote.\u00a0 I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room (this image is a small crop and is 85% of the entire image) but I didn’t need much to keep from cutting off the bird (a juvenile Chukar).\u00a0 I’d rather have cut off the coyotes legs (that we can’t see anyway) than to have done this to the Chukar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So many things went right for me here.\u00a0 I had enough shutter speed to pretty much freeze the action, the angle of light was good on both subjects and they’re both acceptably sharp for this kind of action shot, \u00a0the point of contact was above the grasses and visible, the coyote got close to me in the first place and, most of all, it flushed a bird right in front of me and I had my camera ready.\u00a0\u00a0 And what do I do?\u00a0 I screwed up what was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.\u00a0 I should have anticipated that the prey was a Chukar because we had seen a covey of these young birds disappear into the grasses in that same vicinity just a few minutes before.\u00a0\u00a0I’m familiar enough with the behavior of\u00a0Chukars to know that they’re reluctant to fly and will often flush at the last second in front of a threat. \u00a0\u00a0There’s so many things for a wildlife photographer out in the field to think of, anticipate and plan for.\u00a0 This is one I missed.\u00a0 Hopefully I’ve learned a lesson, painful though it was.\u00a0 If you’re a nature photographer I expect you understand my frustration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh, and by the way – the coyote had the same luck as I did.\u00a0\u00a0The Chukar escaped the jaws of death with only the loss of one small contour feather that I could see in the next frame as it floated to the ground.\u00a0 Bad day for both of us I guess.\u00a0\u00a0 I keep reminding myself that at least I saw<\/em> something that most folks never experience.\u00a0 And for now that will have to suffice…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

There was a range fire on the north end of Antelope Island yesterday that forced managers to clear out all campers from the campgrounds.\u00a0 So when we arrived early this morning the campgrounds were empty and this young coyote was hunting on the edge of Bridger Bay Campground.\u00a0   Canon 7D, 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, EV +0.33 Normally the coyotes on the island are elusive and difficult to approach but I believe this to be a young one so it didn’t seem\u00a0overly concerned about us.\u00a0 Besides, he\/she obviously already had a quarry in sight deep in the grass and wasn’t about to let us interfere with the hunt.\u00a0 In this image the coyote has just spotted something of interest in the grass some distance in front of “him”. \u00a0 \u00a0 Canon 7D, 1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33 Here the coyote begins to make his stalk.\u00a0 At first he didn’t crouch down so that he could see what ever it was he was after\u00a0through the grass. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Canon 7D, 1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33 But as he got closer (both to the potential prey and to me) he began to crouch down, almost in a cat-like manner.\u00a0 At this point I suspected that something dramatic might happen and tried to prepare myself for “the shot”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The most common prey of coyotes on the island is voles but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a vole because the coyote was too far away from his point of interest when he first spotted it to…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,334,352,374,9,392],"tags":[31,457,401,82,98,456,460,459,458,315],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-chukars","category-coyotes","category-favorite-locations","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-bridger-bay-campground","tag-canis-latrans","tag-chukar","tag-coyote","tag-fire","tag-juvenile-chukar","tag-rabbit","tag-stalk","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Ey","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","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=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}