{"id":41799,"date":"2016-08-29T05:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41799"},"modified":"2016-08-29T05:09:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T11:09:31","slug":"the-elusive-wilsons-snipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/29\/the-elusive-wilsons-snipe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Elusive Wilson’s Snipe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The preferred habitat of the Wilson’s Snipe often isn’t pretty but they’re elusive enough that I’ll photograph them anywhere I get the chance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"wilson's<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I photographed this snipe yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. The setting of messy water and rotting phragmites stems couldn’t be much more unattractive but it must look just fine to the bird so I’m okay with it too\u00a0(sort of…).<\/p>\n

I was quite close to the bird so I used my shorter zoom lens and older camera.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"wilson's<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

When they’re drinking very few birds can suck water while their heads are down (pigeons and doves are an exception) so like most birds snipes must tilt their bills upward and use gravity to swallow. This snipe had just dipped its bill in the water and then tilted it upward to allow the water droplets to flow down toward its throat.<\/p>\n

Cohesive forces have formed the two\u00a0droplets into near-spheres so they look like little, clear marbles rolling down the channel formed by the mandible and maxilla of the bill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"wilson's<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then the snipe approached me even closer but soon after this shot was taken another vehicle came up from behind and I backed up to make room for it to pass. When I returned to the spot the bird was gone.<\/p>\n

Over the years I’ve probably only had about a half-dozen good opportunities with snipes so I was pleased that this bird allowed me so close, despite the\u00a0unattractive setting.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

The preferred habitat of the Wilson’s Snipe often isn’t pretty but they’re elusive enough that I’ll photograph them anywhere I get the chance.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41801,"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":[338,334,1742],"tags":[49,699,1554,875,996,3080,874],"class_list":["post-41799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-wilsons-snipe-shore-birds-birds","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-cohesion","tag-drinking","tag-gallinago-delicata","tag-habitat","tag-how-do-birds-drink-water","tag-wilsons-snipe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/wilsons-snipe-8270-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aSb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41799","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=41799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}