{"id":46494,"date":"2017-03-07T05:24:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T12:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=46494"},"modified":"2017-03-07T05:24:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T12:24:39","slug":"western-meadowlark-they-just-cant-help-but-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/07\/western-meadowlark-they-just-cant-help-but-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Meadowlark – They Just Can’t Help But Sing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In springtime\u00a0meadowlarks are at the mercy of their hormones. No matter what they’re doing they often\u00a0burst into song right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite the unspring-like conditions this Western Meadowlark was singing its heart out yesterday at Garr Ranch on Antelope Island. The sun was shining but it\u00a0was only 29\u00b0 F and there was a freezing wind so I expected most birds to be hunkered down in those conditions. But this one’s spring juices were flowing and it sang almost continuously on top of the fence rail.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Several times it flew down into the mix of vegetation and snow directly\u00a0below the fence and foraged for food but even down there it couldn’t resist breaking into song.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

All\u00a0that singing requires food to fuel it and the\u00a0meadowlark snagged this spider in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n

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Yup, it really was a spider and a pretty large one at that. I was a little surprised to learn there are spiders of this size out and about so early in the season.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

To me, birds singing in the snow always seems just\u00a0a little bit\u00a0incongruous and meadowlarks seem more inclined to do it than most species. I like the singing shadow in the snow.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This is probably the same bird a few minutes later\u00a0as it sang\u00a0from another nearby\u00a0post.<\/p>\n

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This shot shows the fence the meadowlark spent most of its time on. When it was foraging for food and singing in the snow it was in the area marked by the red arrow. Useless information I suppose but I do like to show context when I can.<\/p>\n

Naturally\u00a0the meadowlark turned its\u00a0back on me when I grabbed my other camera to take this photo.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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In springtime meadowlarks are at the mercy of their hormones. No matter what they’re doing they often burst into song right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46497,"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":[3,334,392,370],"tags":[31,3040,178,256,284,292,669,323],"class_list":["post-46494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-garr-ranch","tag-hunting","tag-prey","tag-singing","tag-spider","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-western-meadowlark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/western-meadowlark-4942-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-c5U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46494","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=46494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}