here<\/a> if you have the interest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/lark-sparrow-7816-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"lark-sparrow-7816-ron-dudley\\"")
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1\/3200, 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>\nWhen he turned to look behind him for a split second I didn’t have\u00a0enough room on the right to get the composition I wanted but I still appreciated\u00a0getting the new pose. I believe he was scoping out a new perch behind him because very soon after he…<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, 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>\njump-flew a few inches to my right and landed on a different area of the sagebrush. Most of those shots were clipped (I wish I’d had time an opportunity to remove my teleconverter) but I did get him very soon after landing and\u00a0just as he was about to fold his wings.<\/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>\nThis was potentially my favorite Lark Sparrow photo of the morning but the bird just isn’t quite sharp enough, even after extra sharpening on the head and neck.<\/p>\n
It was an interesting morning on the island and I was able to get quite a few photos I like of a variety of birds but the price was a steep one. The biting gnats are about as bad as I’ve ever seen them. Once it warms up enough at about 9 AM clouds\u00a0of them swarming\u00a0around your\u00a0face and head are enough to drive you bat-____ crazy! Their bites itch at first, then swell and hurt and many folks develop weeping sores\u00a0from them that last for days (thankfully I’m not one of them). They especially like to crawl in your hair and bite your scalp but they’re not fussy and they’ll\u00a0homestead on any bare patch of skin available. I’ll bet I breathed in and\/or swallowed dozens of them while I was there.<\/p>\n
So if you visit the island this time of year be psychologically prepared for a very unpleasant experience with no-see-ums and hope you get some good looks at birds and wildlife to (partially) make up for it.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
On a completely unrelated note;<\/em><\/p>\nYesterday morning at exactly 3:30 AM (yes, I guess I am crazy…) when I\u00a0stumbled into the kitchen to make my morning coffee\u00a0to help\u00a0wake me up enough to write the text for yesterday’s blog post I noticed something highly unusual in the dark\u00a0when I looked out the window.<\/em><\/p>\nIn the street directly behind my house there were bright\u00a0flood lights, clouds of smoke or steam rising into the air and flashing white and orange lights. I immediately suspected my neighbor’s house must be on fire and it turned out I was right<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/neighbors-fire-0248-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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This was the result (photo taken about 6 hours later as I drove by after returning from the island). News reports say the fire started\u00a0at 1:30 AM on the back deck\u00a0while the residents of the home were inside watching TV. Someone had been refinishing a table on the deck and that is suspected to have somehow been the origin of the fire.<\/em><\/p>\nNo one was injured but two bedrooms were entirely destroyed with major damage to the rest of the house. Neighboring houses were blistered, several cars were also destroyed and of course the\u00a0residents\u00a0have been displaced from their home for the foreseeable future. My heart goes out to them.<\/em><\/p>\nSo be careful my friends. It goes without saying that fire is a major disruptor of lives and sometimes it extinguishes them altogether!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday on Antelope Island I got my first Lark Sparrow photos of the year but I paid the “no-see-um” price.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58972,"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":[3,334,367,391],"tags":[3278,2026,726,146,197,4012,827,284,289],"class_list":["post-58971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-lark-sparrows","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-behaviors","tag-biting-gnats","tag-chondestes-grammacus","tag-flight","tag-lark-sparrow","tag-murray-house-fire","tag-no-see-ums","tag-singing","tag-song"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/lark-sparrow-7341-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-fl9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58971","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=58971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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