{"id":31603,"date":"2015-05-26T05:23:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T11:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=31603"},"modified":"2015-05-26T07:06:51","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T13:06:51","slug":"a-kingbird-kind-of-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/26\/a-kingbird-kind-of-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Kingbird Kind Of Morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past few days Western Kingbirds have been very active on Antelope Island. Though I’m still trying to interpret some of their behaviors they appear to be in the process of selecting mates and\/or nest sites.<\/p>\n

The light was quite low for some of these images so there’s some noise due to the high ISO’s I was often using.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Groups of them, as many as 3 or 4 birds, fly from perch to perch and noisily interact with each other. Sometimes two of them visit what appears to be a potential nest site with other kingbirds nearby. This one came in close and sang for me for a few moments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0I was able to catch this one taking off…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

but I was more pleased by this\u00a0image, largely because of its degree of difficulty.\u00a0Landing shots of small birds are ridiculously difficult and in the few times I’ve succeeded in the past its been because I had pre-focused on the\u00a0perch just before the bird arrived but this time I followed the bird into the perch with my lens. I got 4 shots as it was coming in but the wing positions\u00a0didn’t appeal to me and there was no light in the eye in 3 of them. This is the only one of the bunch that I really like but\u00a0the series\u00a0gives me hope and encouragement to try the technique\u00a0more often in the future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, several twig\u00a0tips removed,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This bird preened and posed for me for some time. I wish it had been slightly closer but I especially like this pose, partly because it reveals the white outer edges of its outer tail feathers. Of the 8 species of Kingbirds found in North America only the Western Kingbird has this characteristic.<\/p>\n

While I was photographing the bird as it preened I wished out loud for a wing stretch and a few moments later…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"western\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

it accommodated me and threw in a nice spread of the tail for good measure. Getting this pose in a clean setting with good light and a catch light in the eye and the bill slightly open\u00a0pleased me very much.<\/p>\n

I just may have to try “wishing out loud” more often.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

For the past few days Western Kingbirds have been very active on Antelope Island. Though I’m still trying to interpret some of their behaviors they appear to be in the process of selecting mates and\/or nest sites.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31612,"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":[334],"tags":[31,146,579,255,511,677,676],"class_list":["post-31603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-flight","tag-landing","tag-preening","tag-stretching","tag-tyrannus-verticalus","tag-western-kingbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/western-kingbird-3097b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-8dJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31603","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=31603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}