{"id":30530,"date":"2015-04-06T05:55:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T11:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=30530"},"modified":"2015-04-06T05:55:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T11:55:46","slug":"pronghorn-meets-bird-at-40mph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/06\/pronghorn-meets-bird-at-40mph\/","title":{"rendered":"Pronghorn Meets Bird At 40mph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually when something unexpected happens in the field my lens is pointed in another direction but in this instance the timing couldn’t have been much\u00a0better.<\/p>\n

In early spring significant tension in the\u00a0Pronghorn herds on\u00a0Antelope Island\u00a0often leads to intense intimidation and fighting among the males. A\u00a0month ago today I was watching a Pronghorn buck through my lens when he suddenly sprinted toward another male out of frame to\u00a0my right with obvious mayhem in mind. I wanted to get an interesting\u00a0stretched-out running pose so I fired off a few quick bursts as he ran\u00a0and hoped for the best.<\/p>\n

Through my lens\u00a0I hadn’t\u00a0noticed anything\u00a0interesting or unusual happening but when I reviewed\u00a0the images on my screen at home it became obvious that there had been a near-collision\u00a0between the buck and an obviously startled starling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pronghorn1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pronghorn are the second-fastest land mammal on earth (only\u00a0the cheetah is faster) and though this one wasn’t quite\u00a0going full tilt its speed here\u00a0was still impressive (my title speed is just an estimate)\u00a0so when it flushed this\u00a0very surprised starling off the ground there was a near-collision. The exaggerated wing position of the bird tells me that it is making every effort to get out of the way in time\u00a0and it appears that the Pronghorn has his gaze locked onto the bird a few inches in front of its nose. I can’t help\u00a0but wonder what flashed through the minds of both critters at the instant the shutter fired.<\/p>\n

Technically this isn’t a great shot but I still enjoy these kinds of images because I find them visually interesting and\u00a0they make me wonder just how many other “little things” I miss because I’m not looking in the right direction. Or because the\u00a0action happens too fast to see or register. Or because I’m just too dense to notice.<\/p>\n

Or because the event occurred in-between shutter clicks.\u00a0 “Stuff” happens fast out there.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Usually when something unexpected happens in the field my lens is pointed in another direction but in this instance the timing couldn’t have been much better.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30531,"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":[3,334,373],"tags":[31,2344,140,258,311],"class_list":["post-30530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-pronghorns","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-european-starling","tag-fighting","tag-pronghorn","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/pronghorn-7969-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7Wq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530","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=30530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}