{"id":38218,"date":"2016-03-20T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=38218"},"modified":"2016-03-20T06:00:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T12:00:49","slug":"sage-thrasher-a-true-sign-of-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/20\/sage-thrasher-a-true-sign-of-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage Thrasher – A True Sign Of Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the first day of Spring so it was appropriate that I\u00a0got my first decent photos of a Sage Thrasher\u00a0yesterday. When\u00a0Long-billed Curlews, Lark Sparrows\u00a0and Sage Thrashers show up on Antelope Island I know the seasons are changing and yesterday I saw or heard all three species. Willets can’t be far behind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sage1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I have better photos of thrashers from previous years (this\u00a0one is a little cluttered, with “stuff” in front of the bird) but for me this image reeks of Spring because of the singing pose and the fresh sprigs of sagebrush. And I really enjoy the fact that I caught the thrasher\u00a0in its namesake habitat rather than the rabbit brush I often catch them on.<\/p>\n

This bird was singing continually but not very enthusiastically –\u00a0perhaps it was still\u00a0resting up from migration.\u00a0But it won’t be long before the males are performing their Undulating Flights and Bilateral Wing Displays and I can hardly wait to begin photographing these courtship displays once again. Photographing them well can be a real challenge for the bird photographer.<\/p>\n

Sage Thrashers are the smallest of the thrasher species and their original name was Mountain Mockingbird because of their resemblance to that species and their song<\/a> which is reminiscent of a mockingbird’s song (both species are also accomplished mimics). They’re a sagebrush obligate so like\u00a0Sage Grouse they’re generally dependent on large expanses of sagebrush steppe for successful breeding.<\/p>\n

Because of what we’re doing to sagebrush habitat I worry about both species.<\/p>\n

Happy Spring Equinox everyone!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

When Long-billed Curlews, Lark Sparrows and Sage Thrashers show up on Antelope Island I know the seasons are changing and yesterday I saw or heard all three species.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38221,"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":[3,334,391,379],"tags":[31,1647,2887,1535,271,2438,284,2886],"class_list":["post-38218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","category-sage-thrashers","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-courtship-display","tag-mimicry","tag-oreoscoptes-montanus","tag-sage-thrasher","tag-sagebrush-habitat","tag-singing","tag-spring-equinox"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/sage-thrasher-1489b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9Wq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38218","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=38218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}