{"id":35665,"date":"2015-12-09T05:40:02","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T12:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35665"},"modified":"2015-12-09T06:41:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T13:41:22","slug":"two-years-ago-today-damn-it-was-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/two-years-ago-today-damn-it-was-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years Ago Today – Damn, It Was Cold!"},"content":{"rendered":"

My images can be similar to a weather diary and our recent unseasonably warm temperatures made me curious about the weather on this date in previous years so I did some image research. Two years ago today\u00a0(Dec. 9, 2013) was dramatically different from what\u00a0it is today. Right now as I type at my computer at 4:44 AM\u00a0the temperature outside is 44 degrees F. (yes, that’s a lot of\u00a04’s…).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"temperature<\/p>\n

But on this same date two years ago\u00a0the morning temperature at Farmington Bay WMA was 56 degrees colder than that at 12 below zero. It was a long-john morning for sure (this photo is soft so I must have been shivering…).<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was lots of snow on the ground so this male Northern Harrier was perched at the top of some vegetation to avoid floundering in the white stuff. Many birds, including the normally elusive harriers, become “stickier” when it’s this cold so he allowed me a closer approach\u00a0than usual as he turned his dark back to the warming sun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"downy<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, 2 twigs removed,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Downy Woodpecker peered down at me from its icy perch and allowed me a few shots.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"wilson's<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pond at the four-way normally has some open areas even in mid-winter but on this morning it was frozen solid and covered with frost flowers. I composed this image vertically in camera to include both the fluffed up Wilson’s Snipe along the shore\u00a0and the frost flowers on the pond.<\/p>\n

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\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rough-legged Hawks are a\u00a0true arctic species so they’re used to weather conditions like these but this one still seemed a little nonplussed by the cold and snow.<\/p>\n

A few days ago it was announced that Salt Lake City has had the warmest fall (September, October and November) on record since they began keeping track of such things in 1874 (see Salt Late Tribune article<\/a> if you’re interested). And\u00a0this follows our\u00a0previous winter which was the warmest and least snowy on record. Scary stuff…<\/p>\n

But some are predicting\u00a0that the El Nino brewing in the Pacific could bring us more snow and rain than usual late this winter and early spring. I sure hope they’re right.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

BTW, our forecast high temperature for today is 60 degrees F….<\/em><\/p>\n

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

My images can be similar to a weather diary and our recent unseasonably warm temperatures made me curious about the weather on this date in previous years so I did some image research. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35667,"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":[334,1784,8,341,358,1742],"tags":[863,1785,2759,1008,1143,234,2758,269,286,2760,874],"class_list":["post-35665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-downy-woodpecker","category-ecology-and-environment","category-northern-harriers","category-rough-legged-hawks","category-wilsons-snipe-shore-birds-birds","tag-cold","tag-downy-woodpecker-2","tag-el-nino","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-frost-flowers","tag-northern-harrier","tag-record-warm-fall-temperatures-in-utah","tag-rough-legged-hawk","tag-snow","tag-weather","tag-wilsons-snipe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/northern-harrier-6889-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9hf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35665","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=35665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}