{"id":68228,"date":"2019-01-16T05:23:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T12:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=68228"},"modified":"2019-01-16T06:23:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T13:23:35","slug":"male-common-goldeneye-becoming-boxed-in-by-an-ice-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/16\/male-common-goldeneye-becoming-boxed-in-by-an-ice-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Common Goldeneye Becoming Boxed In By An Ice Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve documented a relatively insignificant but interesting and even amusing event in the life of a bird and I even managed to get a shot that I often attempt but rarely get with this species.<\/p>\n

Yesterday was another cloudy day but by later in the afternoon there was almost enough light filtering through for acceptable bird photography so I headed down to a local pond to try my luck. Pickin’s were slim but a male Common Goldeneye cooperated by amusing me at close range for a few minutes.<\/p>\n

Partly because of the marginal light these shots aren’t stellar – the whites don’t have much detail (though none of them are blown) and I had to make some adjustments during processing to get any of the green iridescence in his head to show but I thought both behaviors were at least a little interesting – and hey, at least I got something<\/em> yesterday!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before his ice-bound journey began I got a photo of him that I often try for but seldom get – a diving shot where the eye is still above the water surface. Unlike some species (many grebes for example who flatten their head feathers just before a dive) they give very little warning of an impending dive so by the time I fire my shutter the eye is already below the surface. And if I’m lucky enough to get the eye above water the nictitating membrane is often partially closed but this time it wasn’t. I always think it’s a better shot when we can see the unimpeded open eye so I was pleased to get this one. A small victory.<\/p>\n

After this shot he disappeared behind some phrags on the shoreline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But fourteen minutes later he was back and he was on a quest to run a gauntlet of sorts. Notice the ice at the top of the frame. There was an open but narrow channel of water along the shore in front of me and it was his obvious intention to swim that channel to get to what he apparently assumed was open water on the other side. Being so low on the water he couldn’t really see if there was ice on the far side because it was so thin.<\/p>\n

I’ve chosen the images to include as he swam past me to show some of the interesting reflections on the water’s surface. I like some of them much better than others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He was calm but steadfast as he swam past quite close to me, “knowing” he’d reach open water soon and in the beginning I didn’t seem like much of a threat in my pickup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The bright water here with the largely white bird doesn’t appeal to me at all but I’m including it anyway. I dunno why, maybe to help tell the story of the journey, or for the sake of variety or because of piss-poor judgment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is the point where he was closest to me and from his posture and with his eye so carefully on the source of all those shutter clicks from two noisy cameras it was obvious that he was nervous. Notice how close he was to the ice up top to give himself almost as much space between us as possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And this was when he realized he was trapped in a box canyon of ice (this photo is almost full frame to show as much of the ice as possible) – notice how the ice circles around in front of him and it continues all the way to the shore on the right. His original intention is screwed. His only practical choices were to climb up on the ice and walk, take off and fly over the ice or turn around and go back the way he came. He does look a little….. flummoxed. But eventually…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

he chose the latter and turned tail to swim back the way he came.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Which meant he had to run the gauntlet again because I was still there. Notice he’s swimming a little faster this time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’ll spare you most of the return shots but this is the point where he finally felt comfortable and secure enough to leisurely dip his bill into the water.<\/p>\n

I know, it’s no big deal. But I enjoy watching when birds get into little predicaments like this and then have to make choices about how they’ll respond and I thought others might also.<\/p>\n

Another relatively insignificant but hopefully interesting event in the life of a bird.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: No time to include detailed image techs but these photos were taken with my usual camera gear and most were taken in the range of 1\/1250-2500, f 6.3, ISO 800.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve documented a relatively insignificant but interesting and even amusing event in the life of a bird and I even managed to get a shot that I often attempt but rarely get with this species.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68229,"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":[334,376,395],"tags":[2847,91,1239,180,2625,311],"class_list":["post-68228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-common-goldeneyes","category-miscellaneous","tag-bucephala-clangula","tag-common-goldeneye","tag-diving","tag-ice","tag-reflections","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/common-goldeneye-8678-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-hKs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68228","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=68228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}