{"id":4680,"date":"2012-03-08T08:36:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T15:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=4680"},"modified":"2012-03-08T08:41:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T15:41:00","slug":"golden-eagle-in-the-wind-and-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/08\/golden-eagle-in-the-wind-and-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Eagle In The Wind And Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a brutal morning on the island yesterday with 25 degree F temps, winds of over 4o mph, fresh snow and icy\u00a0roads.\u00a0\u00a0It was eerie-sounding to drive on the roads as the night before the snow had partially melted and then froze hard into a bumpy, icy and noisy sheet.\u00a0\u00a0I knew there’d be no\u00a0sneaking up\u00a0on any birds because my pickup sounded like a freight train approaching on that crunchy ice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"gulls<\/a><\/p>\n

The gulls were just about the only birds out and about.\u00a0 They seemed to enjoy soaring in the wind but when they’d settle into the water they chose areas\u00a0partially protected from the wind, like this cove where the causeway meets the island.<\/p>\n

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\"bison<\/a><\/p>\n

The night before the wind had pasted snow onto the sides of the bison and then it froze to their hides.\u00a0 Some of them were mostly covered with ice.\u00a0 This\u00a0image and the next one should give regular readers of my blog some idea of why I occasionally\u00a0grumble about all the dried sunflowers we have this year.\u00a0 They make it virtually impossible to get a clear shot of any subject on the ground.<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/p>\n

We had just about resigned ourselves to being essentially “skunked” for the morning when\u00a0we spotted this Golden Eagle not too far from the road.\u00a0 It was feeding on what I assume was a jack-rabbit\u00a0(it was relatively large and there are lots\u00a0of them in the area) but of course it was buried in the sunflowers and I couldn’t get a clear shot while it was feeding.\u00a0 The Black-billed Magpies were merciless in their harassment of the eagle in their attempts to get their fair share of the spoils.\u00a0\u00a0This one was brazen enough to hop directly over the back of this huge, fierce raptor.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As\u00a0 we watched the eagle feeding, the very strong wind was blowing in our faces (try holding a big lens steady in conditions like that!) so I knew that when it took off it would do so into the wind and away from us, which is exactly what happened.\u00a0 Just what I needed – more butt shots…\u00a0 But then the\u00a0gods of bird photography smiled on us\u00a0for a change and the eagle decided to come back around for one more look at the magpies swarming all over its breakfast and I was able to get two\u00a0shots I liked as it\u00a0went by.\u00a0 I clipped wings in most of those images though –\u00a0their wings are huge!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/p>\n

You’ll notice that the bird has gobs of rabbit bits on its bill tip and in front of the eye, a bloody left foot and its crop is bulging.\u00a0 I think this eagle had had its fill for the time being.<\/p>\n

Blue sky backgrounds aren’t my favorite for birds in flight but my portfolio is sadly deficient of Golden Eagle images so these two\u00a0photos are definitely keepers for me.<\/p>\n

Another interesting day on Antelope Island.\u00a0 What a place!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

It was a brutal morning on the island yesterday with 25 degree F temps, winds of over 4o mph, fresh snow and icy\u00a0roads.\u00a0\u00a0It was eerie-sounding to drive on the roads as the night before the snow had partially melted and then froze hard into a bumpy, icy and noisy sheet.\u00a0\u00a0I knew there’d be no\u00a0sneaking up\u00a0on any birds because my pickup sounded like a freight train approaching on that crunchy ice.   The gulls were just about the only birds out and about.\u00a0 They seemed to enjoy soaring in the wind but when they’d settle into the water they chose areas\u00a0partially protected from the wind, like this cove where the causeway meets the island.       The night before the wind had pasted snow onto the sides of the bison and then it froze to their hides.\u00a0 Some of them were mostly covered with ice.\u00a0 This\u00a0image and the next one should give regular readers of my blog some idea of why I occasionally\u00a0grumble about all the dried sunflowers we have this year.\u00a0 They make it virtually impossible to get a clear shot of any subject on the ground.       1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc We had just about resigned ourselves to being essentially “skunked” for the morning when\u00a0we spotted this Golden Eagle not too far from the road.\u00a0 It was feeding on what I assume was a jack-rabbit\u00a0(it was relatively large and there are lots\u00a0of them in the area) but of course it was buried in the sunflowers and I…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,334,337,9,392,642],"tags":[31,643,57,153,311],"class_list":["post-4680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-diurnal-raptors","category-favorite-locations","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-golden-eagles","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-aquila-chrysaetos","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-golden-eagle","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1du","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680","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=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}