{"id":48182,"date":"2017-05-12T05:04:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T11:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=48182"},"modified":"2017-05-12T05:04:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T11:04:03","slug":"a-singing-meadowlark-who-then-does-a-weird-sideways-takeoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/12\/a-singing-meadowlark-who-then-does-a-weird-sideways-takeoff\/","title":{"rendered":"A Singing Meadowlark Who Then Does A Weird Sideways Takeoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me it doesn’t get much better than a meadowlark singing\u00a0on fresh, green sagebrush in the spring. But in this case it was the takeoff that really attracted my attention.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

As I said yesterday there’s just something special about sagebrush, at least there is\u00a0for many of us westerners. I photographed this\u00a0meadowlark for about two minutes the day before yesterday on Antelope Island as it performed in the morning sun. I enjoyed this bird more than most that morning because for some reason the biting gnats weren’t bothering me as I watched\u00a0the performance\u00a0through my lens. It seemed to be singing just for me.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

As you can see from my shutter speeds I was set up for takeoff and when the bird turned slightly to its right on the perch I thought I might get a decent angle for it. This was the posture of the bird an instant before it launched.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But when it did so it gave me a takeoff angle I rarely get from any species\u00a0– completely sideways. For my tastes it isn’t the best takeoff posture aesthetically but I found it interesting enough that I keep coming back to it and wondering what prompted it to launch at such an angle. There was no breeze at the moment to affect its takeoff and to me it doesn’t seem like a particularly\u00a0energy-efficient way to gain air speed quickly. Perhaps it just wanted to experiment a little…<\/p>\n

To me it’s only a novelty shot but\u00a0the photo\u00a0intrigued me a little and for some reason it seemed appropriate for Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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For me it doesn’t get much better than a meadowlark singing on fresh, green sagebrush in the spring. But in this case it was the takeoff that really attracted my attention.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48183,"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":[3,5,334,370],"tags":[31,146,3381,284,669,2738,323],"class_list":["post-48182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-flight","tag-sage-brush","tag-singing","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-takeoff","tag-western-meadowlark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/western-meadowlark-8237-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-cx8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48182","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=48182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}