![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/harriss-sparrow-6550-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYesterday morning was mostly just a huge fiasco.<\/p>\n
My intention was to be on Antelope Island at dawn but I’d forgotten that the “shed hunt” (collecting shed antlers) began on the island yesterday and the entrance station to the state park was\u00a0a total and\u00a0absolute madhouse! It took me a half hour to get through the massive\u00a0traffic jam at the entrance station, finally turn around, and get the hell out of there.\u00a0We decided to make a quick stop at Farmington Bay WMA on our way home to see if we could rescue our morning but this time of year most of the refuge is closed to public access for the breeding season so we knew our chances were slim to none.<\/p>\n
As expected we were essentially skunked at the refuge but a Harris’s Sparrow (a rare visitor to Utah)\u00a0at nearby Glover Pond\u00a0saved my day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L II\u00a0IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Mia spotted the\u00a0Harris’s Sparrow (not yet\u00a0in breeding plumage)\u00a0in a bush on the\u00a0east side of the pond. We only had a few seconds with it and we never got a completely unobstructed view but we were close so we got a good look anyway (this image is full frame). This\u00a0bird was a lifer for me so seeing it definitely helped to make up for the earlier fiasco when we tried to get on the\u00a0island.<\/p>\n Harris’s Sparrows have a restricted and remote breeding range in northern Canada and when\u00a0combined with their secretive nesting behavior those factors made it one of the last North American songbirds to have its\u00a0nest and eggs described. Here’s how George M. Sutton described his discovery of the Harris’s Sparrow nest in 1931:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Few researchers have ever studied the Harris’s Sparrow and until 1992 little was known about even the most basic aspects of its breeding biology. To this day there are still no population estimates of the species based on surveys conducted on their breeding grounds.<\/p>\n So yes, this photo is one of the extremely rare examples of an image with “fatal flaws” (two out-of-focus twigs in front of the bird and an\u00a0extremely busy and\u00a0cluttered background) that I was damned excited to get anyway.<\/p>\n I can’t remember the last lifer I got but it’s been a while.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can’t remember the last lifer I got but it’s been a while.<\/p>\n\n