{"id":54327,"date":"2017-12-07T05:35:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T12:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=54327"},"modified":"2017-12-07T06:38:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T13:38:58","slug":"blue-jays-in-utah-and-pied-billed-grebes-rare-birds-and-food-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/07\/blue-jays-in-utah-and-pied-billed-grebes-rare-birds-and-food-fights\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays In Utah And Pied-billed Grebes – Rare Birds And Food Fights"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me these Blue Jay Photos are both a high and a low of sorts. Readers know I don’t bait or use setups on birds and it’s been\u00a0my practice to only photograph birds at my feeders for practice or to test my equipment. Not shooting at feeders isn’t a\u00a0hard and fast rule for me but it’s one I’ve followed on my blog\u00a0so far (though\u00a0I’ve been sorely tempted to photograph birds at my feeders because lately they’ve been so very scarce anywhere else around here). For me baiting raptors in particular\u00a0is an ethical issue but not\u00a0shooting setups or at feeders is only a strong\u00a0personal preference, though in my opinion\u00a0setups can become an ethical issue when\u00a0they\u00a0aren’t disclosed.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays in Utah are a pretty big deal. To call them rare as I implied in my title is probably a bit of a stretch. Officially they’re listed as “occasional winter visitors” but that descriptor was too long and awkward for my title so I went with rare. But this\u00a0late fall and early winter\u00a0across much of the west, including Utah, there’s been a region-wide irruption of Blue Jays and I’ve been wanting to photograph them for weeks now. If that meant shooting at feeders, so be it.<\/p>\n

So yesterday morning\u00a0for the fourth time recently I visited some feeders on the east side of Salt Lake Valley (a private residence)\u00a0and finally got a few documentary shots.<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, photo taken near a feeder<\/em><\/p>\n

I was shooting from the street from my pickup and the jays never came in very close but this one grabbed a peanut at the feeder and landed closer than any of the others. This species is a lifer for me so I was happy to get the\u00a0photos – feeders or not.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, photo taken near a feeder<\/em><\/p>\n

It only gave me a few shots and then it was gone.<\/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, photo taken near a feeder<\/em><\/p>\n

This was probably my best\u00a0photo of the morning. What beautiful colors and plumage patterns they have! For many of my eastern readers Blue Jays are probably fairly ho-hum but this was a notable event for me so I had to include it in today’s post.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 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

Then later in the day I visited a local pond and had some fun with Pied-billed Grebes as they beat the hell out of crayfish before swallowing them. The following from Birds of North America Online about Pied-billed Grebes\u00a0describes what I saw perfectly:<\/p>\n