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<\/p>\nIn\u00a0a recent blog post\u00a0I bellyached about driving 240 miles over five hours and not finding a single cooperative bird. I sure didn’t have that problem yesterday at Farmington.<\/p>\n
We considered our friends Ron and Carol\u00a0to be\u00a0“the guardians of the refuge” because they lived right next to the entrance and\u00a0for years they even opened the refuge gate every morning so we got to know\u00a0them well and liked them very much. They kept tabs on what was going on in the area,\u00a0they\u00a0were very protective of the birds and their yard was a haven for them, by design.\u00a0Sadly they moved out-of-state some months ago but we can still photograph birds in parts of their yard from my pickup\u00a0as we’re leaving the refuge. Yesterday morning was slow for birds in the wetlands but Ron and\u00a0Carol’s fence provided a bevy of California Quail as I was heading for home.<\/p>\n
Over the last couple of years I’ve developed a strong\u00a0aversion\u00a0for the color orange so\u00a0this fence color\u00a0grates on me a bit. The stain on the fence has weathered to orange so I have to try to look past the\u00a0color and concentrate on the birds. And I’m not kidding.<\/p>\n
Sorry, no image techs today. Once again I ran out of time.<\/p>\n
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To get a clear look at the quail I had to get a little too close for my big lens so the birds in these first couple of shots are a little tight. This fella may have been a sentry.<\/p>\n
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Brotherly love seemed to be the order of the day – these two males appeared to be very cozy with each other. Because of the tightness and because I was having trouble getting two or more birds sharp at the long focal length of my 500mm lens I switched to…<\/p>\n
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my smaller zoom lens for much of the time and that gave me more pleasing compositions and sharper birds. I wish we could see more of\u00a0the bill of the male on the right but I like the intimacy of their behavior with each other.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/california-quail-0949-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"california-quail-0949-ron-dudley\\"")
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But it wasn’t all male-male bonding. Here we have a male on the right and a female on the left.<\/p>\n
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I like this photo because of the interesting foot posture of the female but especially because it provides such a good comparison of the sexes.<\/p>\n
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This was the scene that greeted me when I first pulled up on the quail and there was a bunch more of them on the ground below the fence. I don’t recall ever\u00a0having the opportunity to photograph so many quail at one sitting. Between trying to decide which bird(s) to focus on and which lens to use I was\u00a0in a photographic frenzy.<\/p>\n
I’ve posted this photo at a larger size (1200 pixels on the long side instead of my usual 900) because it includes so many birds and I wanted each one to have a little\u00a0more detail.<\/p>\n
So thank you, Ron and Carol. Even after you’ve moved away your many years of\u00a0bird-nurturing continues to serve both\u00a0your bird photographer friends back “home”\u00a0and the birds themselves.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a recent blog post I bellyached about driving 240 miles over five hours and not finding a single cooperative bird. I sure didn’t have that problem yesterday at Farmington.<\/p>\n