{"id":41727,"date":"2016-08-26T05:16:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T11:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41727"},"modified":"2016-08-26T05:23:40","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T11:23:40","slug":"a-passel-of-partridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/26\/a-passel-of-partridges\/","title":{"rendered":"A Passel Of Partridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

I rarely see Gray Partridges in Utah. Nearly all of my opportunities with them have been on the family farm in Montana so yesterday morning it was a real treat to find a family group of them at Golden Spike National Historic Site here in Utah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 200, 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

These birds, native to Europe and Asia, were introduced into North America in the early 1900’s as a game bird. Locals usually refer to them as Hungarian Partridges or “Huns” for short and that’s what we always called them in Montana.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 200, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I never did count the birds in the family group I saw yesterday but there must have been 15 – 20 of them. Most were juveniles but at least two were adults, presumably the parents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 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

When this juvenile crossed the road in front of me I thought it looked a bit like a young chicken so I couldn’t help thinking of the old (and overused) riddle joke – “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and smiling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/9, ISO 200, 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

This is a terrible photo, mostly butts and out of focus birds (I should have switched to my smaller zoom lens), but it gives the viewer a feeling for the family group.<\/p>\n

Gray Partridge hens produce some of the largest clutches of any bird species. Clutch size can range up to 22 eggs, and averages 16 to 18. And it’s a good thing because they have an unusually high mortality rate and short life span.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine that many eggs under a single hen but they have a unique way of managing it. The tightly-packed eggs are arranged in the nest with the points down and towards the middle so the blunt end contacts the female – an efficient way to utilize limited space.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 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

Gray Partridges exhibit little sexual dimorphism so I hesitate to ID this bird as male or female but it’s an adult. Here it paused on the edge of the road to look for danger before the rest of the group crossed the road.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 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

These birds can really scoot when they want to so it’s a challenge to keep one in focus when it’s close and running.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gray<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 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

This is how I usually used to see the species in Montana with only their heads sticking up out of the grass as they tried to decide whether to hide or flee. As a kid I used to call them “heart attack birds” because if you unexpectedly flush a flock of them in front of you their loudly whirring wings and shrieking alarm calls will instantly send gallons of adrenalin rushing\u00a0through your system and leave your heart\u00a0pounding hard for some time after!<\/p>\n

This family group will remain together until late winter or early spring when birds start to pair up for a new breeding season.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

I rarely see Gray Partridges in Utah. Nearly all of my opportunities with them have been on the family farm in Montana so yesterday morning it was a real treat to find a family group of them at Golden Spike National Historic Site here in Utah.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41728,"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":[334,1394,391],"tags":[24,689,1318,3074,828,832,3075,190,220,1395,276,311],"class_list":["post-41727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-gray-partridges","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-adult","tag-box-elder-county","tag-clutch-size","tag-golden-spike-national-historic-site","tag-gray-partridge","tag-hungarian-partridge","tag-huns","tag-juvenile","tag-montana-2","tag-perdix-perdix","tag-sexual-dimorphism","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/gray-partridge-1011-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aR1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41727","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=41727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}