highly entertaining courtship display<\/a> and the unusual aspects of\u00a0their biology.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"common-goldeneye-9506b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/common-goldeneye-9506b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 6400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\nHere’s a couple of Common Goldeneyes on a rock jutting out of the Great Salt Lake. The\u00a0duck on the right is a first winter bird while the other one is an adult female. I think the ice-encrusted\u00a0rock is almost as interesting as the ducks but I also enjoy the water colors in the background. There were a few males swimming around in the vicinity but on this day I didn’t get any shots I like of them out of the water.<\/p>\n
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![\"common-goldeneye-0987-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/common-goldeneye-0987-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\nBut a few days later I caught this male goldeneye on the Jordan River\u00a0as it climbed out of the water and onto this submerged rock\u00a0for just a few seconds before going back to foraging for food in the fast-moving river. I like to photograph ducks out of the water because of the better look it provides of the entire bird.\u00a0I don’t have many shots of male Common Goldeneyes\u00a0where they aren’t swimming so I was happy to get this one.<\/p>\n
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![\"common-raven-8846-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/common-raven-8846-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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1\/4000, 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>\nIn some areas (think National Parks and the like) Common Ravens are ridiculously tame\u00a0but around here I find them very difficult to approach. I can sometimes get\u00a0close to them in my pickup but they’re gone as soon as I stop to take their photo. This one was an exception and for good reason.<\/p>\n
The bird spent several minutes trying to throw a pellet so it was very tolerant of my presence. In fact I was so close that I had to go to my smaller zoom lens. The bird struggled to get the pellet out and evidence of that can be seen in its open beak (it isn’t calling) and the erected throat feathers. Every time it retched I lost the catch light in the eye so I didn’t include any of those photos. The raven never did throw the pellet but it wasn’t for lack of trying\u00a0and eventually it flew off.<\/p>\n
Many folks are surprised to learn that ravens cast pellets but they do. Typically they consist of skeletal remains, fur and feathers but their contents can be highly variable depending on location and typical food items. Here’s an example from a location in Maine (source, Birds of North America Online):<\/p>\n
\n- “In Maine, some pellets consist mostly of cherry pits; mountain cranberry or mountain ash skins and seeds; feathers; or deer, flying squirrel, or rodent hair; a few were all white from quartz gravel, and near a landfill some contained only plastic; 1 consisted completely of a handkerchief “.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Occasionally I like to post a collection of recent bird images – a potpourri of sorts. These are photos that I might not post as stand-alones but collectively they’re a pretty good representation of some of the species now present in northern Utah. Each of these images was taken over the past eleven days.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44359,"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":true,"_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":[3,334,376,1531,391],"tags":[91,93,3229,3228,2020,2404],"class_list":["post-44358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-common-goldeneyes","category-common-ravens","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-common-goldeneye","tag-common-raven","tag-courtshp-display","tag-northern-utah","tag-pellet-casting","tag-ruddy-duck"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/common-goldeneye-0987-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-bxs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44358","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=44358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"ruddy-duck-0875-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ruddy-duck-0875-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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