![\"ring-necked](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ring-necked-pheasant-9130-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou can’t tell me that birds don’t\u00a0become “stickier” (more reluctant to fly and easier to approach)\u00a0when it’s very cold.<\/p>\n
For most of the year the Ring-necked Pheasants in my area tend to be nervous and shy. Typically at the approach of a vehicle or a\u00a0person on foot\u00a0they’ll skulk in the vegetation or flush explosively. When they do the latter their startling alarm call combined with the incredibly loud whirring of their wings can make one’s heart skip about a half-dozen beats. If you experience it you don’t forget it.<\/p>\n
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1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 142mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n But yesterday morning when I found this male pheasant at Farmington Bay MBA at dawn\u00a0the temperature was only 5 degrees F. and he had no intention of flying anywhere. He was on the side of a hill facing the rising sun and I believe he wanted to warm up instead of wasting energy on flying. He as right next to the road I was driving and showed little sign of nervousness with me so close (notice that this shot was taken at only 142mm).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n To give you an idea just how close, I took this shot with my big lens and it’s full frame (uncropped). In fact I believe I was just an inch or two closer than the minimum focusing distance of my lens because none of these head shots were quite as sharp as they should have been.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1000, f\/9, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n One of those shots caught his nictitating membrane closed and I’m always interested in seeing it up close when I can get this much detail. The membrane is made of living tissue and must be supplied with blood and here we can see its nourishing blood vessels.<\/p>\n The nictitating membrane (nictitans)\u00a0is a membrane or \u201cthird eyelid\u201d found in some vertebrates that can be drawn across the eye for protection and to moisten and lubricate\u00a0the surface of the eye. It is either translucent or semi-transparent so the animal maintains sight while it covers the eye. Birds, sharks and some reptiles have a fully functional nictitating membrane while in most mammals (including humans)\u00a0there is only a small vestigial remnant in the inside\u00a0corner of the eye. However camels, polar bears, seals, aardvarks, marsupials (pouched mammals)\u00a0and monotremes (egg-laying mammals)\u00a0do\u00a0have functional membranes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n This impressive near-adult (head not completely white yet) Bald Eagle also gave me a good look at the nictitans several years ago. This bird was unusually tame as\u00a0it hunted for fish from the “owl bridge” at Farmington.\u00a0It was perched on the short, thick pole next to the boat ramp (the pole that now has a bat box on it) and the bird simply ignored\u00a0the occasional traffic directly beneath its position. I froze my behind off as I photographed this\u00a0eagle for several hours.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n At one point I caught the membrane partially closed as it swiped across the eye from its inside corner near the beak to its outside corner. In this position the leading edge of the membrane can look like a dark or black vertical line, especially in some bright-eyed ducks like Common Goldeneyes and Lesser Scaups.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n In this image the membrane is completely closed and we get another look at those blood vessels. In this case the eagle closed its membrane to protect its eye as it shook its head, as evidenced by the two\u00a0 flying water droplets and the blurry beak-tip. At some light angles the membrane can look almost opaque like this but the bird can still see through it.<\/p>\n In humans the only remnants we have of the membrane\u00a0are vestigial but as a biologist I always wonder selection pressures in our evolutionary history caused our ancestors to lose them. There are sure times when I think it would be interesting and even useful to still have them as fully functioning structures.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can’t tell me that birds don’t become “stickier” (more reluctant to fly and easier to approach) when it’s very cold.<\/p>\n![\"ring-necked](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ring-necked-pheasant-1247-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"ring-necked](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ring-necked-pheasant-1283-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"bald](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/bald-eagle-8359-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"bald](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/bald-eagle-8355-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"bald-eagle-8369-tight-crop](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/bald-eagle-8369-tight-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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