![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tundra-swan-1927-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"tundra-swan-1927-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nAnd this bird has some suspicious looking feather damage.<\/p>\n
Three weeks ago I spent some quality time with Tundra Swans at Bear River MBR. Out of many hundreds of photos I took of them that morning\u00a0this is one of my favorites.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/9, 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 The swan has recently lifted off from the water and is in the process of gaining altitude in the relatively slow and lumbering manner of the species. Because of cloud cover most of my photos that morning were taken in marginal light but for this shot the bird and phragmites at bottom are bathed in morning light while the water and Promontory Mountains in the background are still shaded. I love the contrast of the well-lit swan and the phrags at bottom with the darker background up top. I have good detail, I like the flight posture and I even have a distinct catch light in the eye.<\/p>\n While processing the image I became curious about the unusual-looking hole in the primaries of the left wing and wondered if some lowbrow with a rifle had taken a pot shot at the bird while it was flying high overhead. Sadly that’s a regular occurrence with large soaring birds including but not limited to raptors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I\u00a0attempted to investigate\u00a0further by cropping in tightly on the previous image to get a better look at the damage.\u00a0It appears to me that this is not a\u00a0simple case of the barbs in that feather being separated from each other which typically results in a “V”-shaped opening. Here an entire section of barbs appears to have been amputated so that the borders of the remaining barbs are parallel to each other which resulted in a rectangular (or parallelogram-shaped)\u00a0opening.<\/p>\n If we look closely even the overlapping feather behind the damaged one appears to have similar damage in the same spot which is exactly what one might expect\u00a0if the damage was caused by a bullet.<\/p>\n I’m far from a forensic pathologist but it’ll take some convincing to make me think otherwise. As a kid growing up in Montana I saw others taking pot shots at soaring birds more than once so I know such sickening human behavior isn’t unusual.<\/p>\n I hope I’m wrong but we’ll probably never know for sure.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And this bird has some suspicious looking feather damage.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tundra-swan-feather-damage-1927-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"tundra-swan-feather-damage-1927-ron-dudley\\"")
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