{"id":3790,"date":"2012-01-15T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2012-01-15T21:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=3790"},"modified":"2012-01-16T05:54:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T12:54:42","slug":"a-howl-of-a-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/15\/a-howl-of-a-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Howl of a Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you’re out in the field you just never know what you\u00a0might see.\u00a0 Or hear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On an early morning\u00a0this week I found this Male Northern Harrier on a trail sign.\u00a0 Since the perch was not a natural one I set up to try to get a take-off shot if he should lift off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"male<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

As usual I was shooting from my pickup and in order to get in position for good light I had to park in the middle of the lightly used\u00a0road.\u00a0 In such cases I always roll down the window on the passenger side so that I can hear any vehicle that might approach so I can get out of their way (it’s very easy to not see an approaching vehicle while concentrating on a bird through the camera’s viewfinder).\u00a0 Having\u00a0that window down made a big difference to\u00a0how I reacted to what happened next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"coyote-6350\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 500,\u00a0500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Suddenly there was a piercing howl that was so loud it sounded like it was coming from inside my truck!\u00a0 Seriously, I almost jumped out of my skin it startled me so much.\u00a0 It was this coyote, hidden in the grasses.\u00a0 It was only about 75′ away from me and with three of the four windows down the clamor was tremendous.\u00a0 Coyotes often howl as loudly as 105 decibels and believe me that’s a very\u00a0impressive din at this close range – especially when it’s unexpected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At first I could only see the front of the coyote through all\u00a0the grasses, rabbitbrush and dried sunflowers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote-6374\"<\/a>\u00a01\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500\u00a0f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

So I quickly maneuvered my pickup to try to get a less obstructed view – fully expecting the coyote to high-tail it but it just stood there with its front feet planted on a mound of snow\u00a0and continued to howl enthusiastically.\u00a0 And did I say it was loud<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote-6389\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/800, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500\u00a0f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The coyote’s eyes were always closed during a howl but at least in this shot it turned a bit to put some light on the face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"coyote-6396\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500\u00a0f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

By this time we’d spotted another coyote very close by and in this shot the animal turned to look\u00a0at its\u00a0companion\u00a0which finally gave me both light on the face and open eyes.\u00a0 In this\u00a0image the coyote looks rather\u00a0handsome and noble…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote-6400\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/640, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500\u00a0f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

but I couldn’t resist\u00a0including this shot taken just as it came out of a howl which made it look silly, even demented.\u00a0 It made me smile.<\/p>\n

I’ve often seen and heard coyotes yipping and howling but it’s always been from great distances.\u00a0 This was a new experience for me and one I’ll not soon forget even though I never did get any completely unobstructed photos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

When you’re out in the field you just never know what you\u00a0might see.\u00a0 Or hear.\u00a0 On an early morning\u00a0this week I found this Male Northern Harrier on a trail sign.\u00a0 Since the perch was not a natural one I set up to try to get a take-off shot if he should lift off.\u00a0   \u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc As usual I was shooting from my pickup and in order to get in position for good light I had to park in the middle of the lightly used\u00a0road.\u00a0 In such cases I always roll down the window on the passenger side so that I can hear any vehicle that might approach so I can get out of their way (it’s very easy to not see an approaching vehicle while concentrating on a bird through the camera’s viewfinder).\u00a0 Having\u00a0that window down made a big difference to\u00a0how I reacted to what happened next.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 500,\u00a0500 f\/4, 1.4 tc Suddenly there was a piercing howl that was so loud it sounded like it was coming from inside my truck!\u00a0 Seriously, I almost jumped out of my skin it startled me so much.\u00a0 It was this coyote, hidden in the grasses.\u00a0 It was only about 75′ away from me and with three of the four windows down the clamor was tremendous.\u00a0 Coyotes often howl as loudly as 105 decibels and believe me that’s a very\u00a0impressive din at this close range – especially when it’s unexpected.\u00a0 At first I could only see the…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[374,13],"tags":[401,98,595,234],"class_list":["post-3790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coyotes","category-mammals","tag-canis-latrans","tag-coyote","tag-howl","tag-northern-harrier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Z8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790","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=3790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}