{"id":33441,"date":"2015-08-17T04:43:33","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T10:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=33441"},"modified":"2015-08-17T12:40:05","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T18:40:05","slug":"shrike-take-off-against-a-smoky-background-plus-an-antelope-island-raptor-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/17\/shrike-take-off-against-a-smoky-background-plus-an-antelope-island-raptor-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Shrike Take-off Against A Smoky Background (plus an Antelope Island raptor report)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birds were generally\u00a0slow on Antelope Island yesterday morning but this Loggerhead Shrike saved the day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"loggerhead1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc. not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Most of the island is beautiful and well maintained but there’s a junk pile hidden away near a side road that has been\u00a0fairly productive for me the last couple of years. Birds like it so I do too. This adult\u00a0shrike and several juveniles were hanging around on some of the old wood in the pile and I was able to catch it in a pose I like as it took off.<\/p>\n

Smoke from out-of-state fires poured into northern Utah\u00a0during the night so the background is gray due to the smoky skies. I actually think it works pretty well with this mostly gray and black bird – gray on gray with a little color from the wood that very nearly matches the rump of the bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Island\u00a0raptor report:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen any raptors on the island with the exception of the occasional Northern Harrier and American Kestrel but yesterday morning held a couple of pleasant surprises even though I didn’t get any great shots to document the occasion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc. not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Red-tailed Hawks used to be a semi-regular feature on the island but it’s been way too long since I’ve seen one there. This juvenile popped up unexpectedly on a large Tintic Quartzite rock near the main\u00a0island road and I was thrilled to see it. Red-tails have been common just off the island to the east this summer but this one was a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc. not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ferruginous Hawks have never been common on the island that I know of but this one also made an appearance yesterday. I could never get close to it…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc. not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

but this Common Raven made a point of doing just that. The\u00a0raven\u00a0obviously wasn’t as\u00a0happy about the presence of the hawk as I was.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I just thought that local birders and bird photographers might be interested in a possible (and likely fleeting)\u00a0uptick in the island raptor population.<\/p>\n

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

Birds were generally slow on Antelope Island yesterday morning but this Loggerhead Shrike saved the day.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33442,"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":[3,334,377,346,450],"tags":[31,93,138,146,409,206,451,2596,305,311],"class_list":["post-33441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-ferruginous-hawks","category-loggerhead-shrikes-shrikes-and-vireos","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-common-raven","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-flight","tag-lanius-ludovicianus","tag-loggerhead-shrike","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-smoke","tag-tintic-quartzite","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/loggerhead-shrike-4632-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-8Hn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33441","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=33441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}