{"id":52695,"date":"2017-10-19T05:59:08","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T11:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=52695"},"modified":"2017-10-19T06:48:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T12:48:03","slug":"i-think-kestrels-and-flickers-share-a-mean-gene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/19\/i-think-kestrels-and-flickers-share-a-mean-gene\/","title":{"rendered":"I Think Kestrels And Flickers Share A “Mean Gene”"},"content":{"rendered":"

And that gene is expressed in\u00a0the presence of bird photographers. Specifically this<\/em> bird photographer (as you may have already surmised this post is more about the frustrations of bird photography than it is about great images).<\/p>\n

For most of the year American Kestrels give me huge\u00a0headaches. Except for about two months in the dead of winter (when temps are truly frigid\u00a0they’re much “stickier”) their primary purpose in life is to screw up my attempts\u00a0to get\u00a0quality photos of them. They do it\u00a0largely by fleeing before I’m within shouting distance and\/or choosing terribly unattractive perches with an abundance of obstructions in poor light.<\/p>\n

Northern Flickers share the same nasty attitude toward me (I swear it must\u00a0be genetic, though they’re not closely related). Flickers tease by loudly and regularly announcing their presence\u00a0but when I try to approach them they fly off before we’re in the same county. I often see photographers (mostly in other parts of the country) posting flicker\u00a0photos where the bird is frame-fillingly close but flickers around here\u00a0have it in for\u00a0me.<\/p>\n

I know of a tree where a male\u00a0kestrel and a male flicker make regular and punctual\u00a0appearances so I’ve been visiting\u00a0that tree\u00a0almost every day for the last several weeks. One or both of them usually shows up at about the same time in the late afternoon so I’ve been trying very, very hard to\u00a0get some quality photos. My experience over the last two days should give you some idea of how I’ve fared. And why I’m so\u00a0damn frustrated.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 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

Three days ago the male flew in very close but I’m convinced he deliberately<\/em> chose this spot on the tree\u00a0limb so there would be as many distracting branches in the photo as possible and a truly annoying shadow across his chest. I actually had to back up my pickup to get even this clear of a view of him.\u00a0After this shot he took off and I didn’t know where he went so I just waited to see what would happen.\u00a0I didn’t know\u00a0it but this\u00a0bird wasn’t through with me yet.<\/p>\n

Three minutes later he came out of nowhere and\u00a0landed within 7′ of my left rear tire (I carefully\u00a0estimated the distance visually) and snagged a dragonfly that I hadn’t even known was there. I quickly grabbed my smaller lens so I could photograph him that close but just as I began to aim it at him he took off…<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 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

and landed in the same nightmare tree that’s so thick with distracting branches I never get clear shots. He paused only long enough to allow me a few photos with part of his face and the dragonfly in shade before taking off again. I suspect he landed there only to taunt me.<\/p>\n

The next afternoon things didn’t go much better with the male flicker.<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 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

He came in quite close (yup, in that same cursed tree)\u00a0and taking a lesson from the kestrel he chose a cluttered perch and deliberately put a shadow across his face and upper body.\u00a0After he’d had his fun with me he flew off and I thought he was probably\u00a0gone\u00a0for the evening so I relaxed a little.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in <\/em><\/p>\n

But literally one minute later (he had to beat the kestrel’s record of three minutes) he landed within a foot or two\u00a0of where the kestrel had landed the day before, very close to my left\u00a0rear tire. This time instead of grabbing my smaller lens\u00a0I\u00a0quickly took the teleconverter off of my 500mm but I still couldn’t fit all of him into the frame so the result was this head shot (at least we get a great look at that red malar stripe).<\/p>\n

To get this photo I had to “stand up” in my pickup seat in order to aim down that low and get the flicker in the frame. After about\u00a0ten seconds he took off and I still don’t know why he landed where he did (except possibly to rub my nose in the dirt)\u00a0.<\/p>\n

I’m not making this stuff up folks and I’m not even exaggerating. These birds have it in for me and I don’t know why. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

But I’m sure I’ll be at the same nightmare\u00a0tree next time we have good afternoon light and trying again. I don’t know when to throw in the towel and that’s probably\u00a0a character flaw…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Oh, I almost\u00a0forgot. My frustrations two days ago didn’t end with the flicker.\u00a0One species I’ve never photographed (I don’t even remember ever seeing one) in ten years of photographing birds\u00a0is the Steller’s Jay.\u00a0With their stunning blue\/black colors, impressive crest and (here in the interior west) white eye stripe and\u00a0forehead marks they’ve always been high on my list of desired subjects.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Eleven minutes before the flicker landed next to my pickup this Steller’s Jay flew into\u00a0a tree about 150 yards away. Of course it wasn’t close and was\u00a0obscured by branches. It stayed there for about 15 seconds and then it was gone. They’re typically mountain birds so I was surprised to see this one at such a low elevation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can’t help but wonder if these\u00a0close calls and frustrations at this location will ever end…<\/em><\/p>\n

Note: This post is written a little tongue in cheek. But only a little.<\/p>\n

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I’m not making this stuff up folks and I’m not even exaggerating.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52699,"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":[340,6,334,1496],"tags":[28,3612,211,1144,3611,311],"class_list":["post-52695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-northern-flickers","tag-american-kestrel","tag-closup-of-red-malar-stripe","tag-male","tag-northern-flicker","tag-stellers-jay","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/northern-flicker-5739-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-dHV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52695","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=52695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}