{"id":39896,"date":"2016-07-09T06:49:56","date_gmt":"2016-07-09T12:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39896"},"modified":"2016-07-09T07:29:18","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T13:29:18","slug":"short-eared-owl-on-an-interesting-wooden-fence-post-and-some-thoughts-on-natural-perches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/09\/short-eared-owl-on-an-interesting-wooden-fence-post-and-some-thoughts-on-natural-perches\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-eared Owl On An Interesting Wooden Fence Post (and some thoughts on natural perches)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I suppose I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to the perches my birds choose. I strongly dislike power poles (with their wires, insulators\u00a0and steep angles) and I have similar attitudes toward various types of signs, metal fence posts and shiny new wire (if the metal posts and wire are old and have a rusty patina they’re not quite so bad). Gnarly old and weathered wooden fence posts are a big step in the right direction. But given a choice my preference is for natural perches that include as little evidence as possible of the “hand of man”.<\/p>\n

The mantra of some that if a perch or setting\u00a0is “good enough for the bird it should be good enough for the photographer” just doesn’t cut it with me. I consider myself to be primarily a nature photographer and a bird perched on a stop sign or something similar holds little\u00a0appeal for me unless there’s some kind of interesting behavior involved.<\/p>\n

Humans have altered the environment so drastically over the years that many of the traditional\u00a0natural perches are no longer available to\u00a0birds so I’m glad that they’ve been able to adapt\u00a0to using (and hunting from)\u00a0artificial alternatives like poles, posts and signs. But my goal (often an unachievable one) is to photograph them in a natural-looking setting.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0some unnatural perches have more appeal for me than others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this adult Short-eared Owl about five weeks ago in northern Utah. I like the even light on the bird, the clean, creamy background\u00a0and the fine plumage\u00a0detail we see, including the fringed ends of the primary and secondary fight feathers on the left wing (that fringing contributes to the “silent flight” of owls).<\/p>\n

And I even like that fence post perch. It’s old and weathered and there’s no paint on it (other than bird whitewash…)\u00a0but its primary appeal for me is the forked branching of\u00a0the limb or trunk of the tree it was cut from. “Natural looking” is a matter of degree instead of an absolute and to me this post has more appeal (and looks a little more natural) than most straight, vertical posts.<\/p>\n

Many bird photographers who supposedly\u00a0agree with me about natural perches use setups to “solve” the problem.\u00a0They typically install attractive, natural-looking perches in good light with\u00a0perfect (often artificial) backgrounds and then either bait birds in to the perches with food or\u00a0use electronic calls to attract them. Or both.\u00a0To me there’s nothing “natural” at all\u00a0about these setups (neither the perches or the behaviors are natural)\u00a0and I simply won’t use them.<\/p>\n

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the subject of perches. I’m sure opinions will vary…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: I’d prefer to avoid the debate over what is truly “natural” and what isn’t. In my experience that discussion\u00a0often deteriorates into a bottomless pit of extreme opinions on both sides (by a few)\u00a0and no one ever seems to learn anything (or change their minds) as a result of the banter. It’s almost like arguing about politics or religion.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Been there, done all three…<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I suppose I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to the perches my birds choose.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39897,"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":[6,334,8,16,356],"tags":[3011,35,42,2176,225,2318,279,311],"class_list":["post-39896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-photography-ethics","category-short-eared-owls","tag-artificial-perches","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-baiting","tag-electronic-calls","tag-natural-perches","tag-setup","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/short-eared-owl-4527-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-anu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39896","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=39896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}