{"id":35508,"date":"2015-12-01T05:53:05","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T12:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35508"},"modified":"2015-12-01T14:28:49","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T21:28:49","slug":"a-couple-of-magpie-take-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/01\/a-couple-of-magpie-take-offs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Couple Of Magpie Take-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finally found a few semi-cooperative birds on Antelope Island yesterday morning. Among them were a couple of Black-billed Magpies.<\/p>\n

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\"black-billed<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/strong> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I found this\u00a0magpie perched on top of an old magpie nest that I’ve been following for years – perhaps this\u00a0bird was raised there.\u00a0It’s a classic magpie nest – a very large domed structure with a nesting chamber inside. I know that it has at least two entrances and this time of year, with all the leaves in the bush that supports it gone, the shape and structure of almost the entire nest is easy to see.<\/p>\n

This bird took off almost directly into the sun which gave me some iridescence<\/span> on the right wing and just enough light\u00a0on that deeply black\u00a0photon-trapping face and neck.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"black-billed<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/strong> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This is another magpie just after it took off from a branch\u00a0barely out of frame to the right. The ventral plumage of magpies doesn’t show iridescence<\/span> but I thought the play of light on most of the black ventral plumage made up for it.<\/p>\n

Magpies are early nesters and I found both of these birds in areas on the island with\u00a0high concentrations of magpie nests but I’m sure that our recent turn of the weather has given pause to any amorous designs these birds may have had during our warm late\u00a0fall. I saw 11 degrees F. yesterday morning and it’s even colder this morning.<\/p>\n

This may be my first morning of shooting wearing long johns…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Addendum: In response to several inquiries in the comments below I’ve added the following three images of the same nest shown in the first image of this post. All three images were taken in March and April of this year. I include the third image that includes the magpie\u00a0to\u00a0show\u00a0scale.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/p>\n

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

I finally found a few semi-cooperative birds on Antelope Island yesterday morning.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35509,"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":[3,334,363],"tags":[31,57,146,186,228,610],"class_list":["post-35508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-flight","tag-iridescence","tag-nest","tag-pica-hudsonia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/black-billed-magpie-6371-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9eI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35508","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=35508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}