{"id":41331,"date":"2016-08-08T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41331"},"modified":"2016-08-08T10:53:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T16:53:32","slug":"black-necked-stilt-flight-series-8-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/08\/black-necked-stilt-flight-series-8-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Black-necked Stilt Flight Series (8 images)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have so few quality images of stilts in flight I could count them\u00a0on the legs of my tripod. But now I’d need an octopod just to count the nice flight\u00a0images I\u00a0captured yesterday of this single bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of their swift, erratic flight I’ve found it to be extremely difficult to photograph Black-necked Stilts in the air but yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge I got lucky with this bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I locked focus and stayed locked on for a series of ten images as the bird passed by me over the water. In two of those images I clipped body parts so I haven’t included them here.<\/p>\n

I was a little surprised to see that the outer two primaries of this bird were brown instead of black like the rest (but then I’m no plumage\/molt expert…).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was flying into a moderate headwind and that slowed the bird down and made it a little easier for me to maintain focus. Wind can\u00a0be a pain for bird photographers but in this case I think it was my friend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because some of the wing feathers are tipped with white I\u00a0believe this is an immature bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beginning with this image the stilt turned ever so slightly toward me and I believe the better eye contact that provided engages the viewer more effectively.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here an oblique patch of vegetation on the water entered the frame and since it somewhat resembles a horizon line it might imply that the\u00a0photo needs leveling. Doing so would tilt the flight angle of the bird unrealistically so I didn’t\u00a0rotate the image.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I quite enjoy the somewhat unusual background layering in this shot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-necked<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this final image I didn’t have quite as much room in front of the bird as I’d like for ideal composition but I decided to live with it and not add canvas on the left.<\/p>\n

I was very pleased to get this series, especially since I was using my older, slower-focusing Canon 7D. Yes, my 7D Mark II is in the shop again because the first “repair” didn’t fix my focusing issues. Grrr…<\/p>\n

Yesterday at the refuge was both interesting and challenging. It was “birdier” out there than I’ve seen it for a very long time but it was a blustery, windy, partly cloudy\u00a0morning and the lighting\u00a0sometimes changed several times per minute. I hope I didn’t wear out the\u00a0dials and buttons on that old 7D as I tried to maintain proper camera settings under those volatile lighting conditions…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

A heads up for local birders and bird photographers. Beginning today the auto tour route at Bear River MBR will be closed to visitors every day through August 18\u00a0from sunrise to 4pm due to a dike restoration project. Visitors can still drive the loop\u00a0from 4pm till dark.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I have so few quality images of stilts in flight I could count them on the legs of my tripod. But now I’d need an octopod just to count the nice flight images I captured yesterday of this single bird.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41338,"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":[338,334,708],"tags":[49,705,3061,146,707,328],"class_list":["post-41331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-black-necked-stilts","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-black-necked-stilt","tag-brown-primaries","tag-flight","tag-himantopus-mexicanus","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/black-necked-stilt-9187-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aKD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41331","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=41331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}