![\"spotted](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/spotted-towhee-6863-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI’ve had occasional distant and cluttered\u00a0glimpses of Spotted Towhees\u00a0over the\u00a0years but\u00a0quality photographs of them\u00a0have always eluded me. Until yesterday.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/800, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon XTi, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n My best chance came years ago, on October 1, 2007 (soon after I began photographing birds –\u00a0notice the “ancient” camera in my techs),\u00a0while I was skulking in the\u00a0weeds at Farmington as I attempted to photograph grebes on the 4-way pond.\u00a0I\u00a0heard a rustling sound in front of me and when I looked up from my viewfinder this stunning bird was looking back at me from an incredibly close distance. We were eyeball to eyeball and at the time\u00a0I didn’t even\u00a0know what species I was looking at but I certainly did <\/em>\u00a0know that I wanted photos of it.<\/p>\n But I was much too close to the bird. Occasionally I could focus on it but I\u00a0couldn’t get its entire body in the frame. I knew that if I took the time (and made the necessary commotion) to remove my teleconverter the bird would be long-gone so I snapped off 13 close-up portraits in less than five seconds before the bird flew off.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s the full frame (uncropped) version of the image to demonstrate the problem I had due to my closeness to the bird. I do like this cropped portrait (first\u00a0image)\u00a0for the detail but one of my primary bird photography goals was now to get quality photos of Spotted Towhees without clipping or cutting off body parts or having anything else go wrong.<\/p>\n It didn’t happen until yesterday. That’s 2759 days!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em>, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n My experience with this male Spotted Towhee yesterday in the west desert\u00a0didn’t begin well. Typical of the species, he and his mate were skulking deep\u00a0in the sagebrush and a few small junipers that lined the road and I just couldn’t get a clear shot of either one. For a split second the male landed on this blindingly bright perch and I was able to shoot through most of the obstructions to get this near butt-shot but I don’t like the bright setting and out of focus elements at lower right so for me the image is only documentary.<\/p>\n But then the towhee did something unheard of.\u00a0He cooperated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em>, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n He\u00a0hopped up onto this exposed, elevated perch in good light and posed for me for several seconds. I couldn’t believe it. He even gave me a side view with good eye contact from that distinctive “morocco red” eye.<\/p>\n Conquering this nemesis took a very long time but I think that contributes to the satisfaction I feel to have finally\u00a0created\u00a0a few\u00a0images of the species that I like quite well. I’ll try to improve on them down the road but for now I’m quite happy with yesterday’s results.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve had occasional distant and cluttered glimpses of Spotted Towhees over the years but quality photographs of them have always eluded me. Until yesterday.<\/p>\n![\"spotted](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/spotted-towhee-6863b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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