{"id":68547,"date":"2019-01-25T05:44:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T12:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=68547"},"modified":"2019-01-25T11:51:50","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T18:51:50","slug":"american-white-pelican-counting-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/25\/american-white-pelican-counting-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"American White Pelican Counting Coup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plus why I’m so enamored by the traditions and artifacts of the Plains Indians and their connections to our family farm (yes, I got a little carried away today…).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I took this photo on February 28, 2017 as the pelican in flight was coming in for a landing at Bear River MBR.<\/p>\n

I enjoy the relative positions of the two birds because it almost appears as if the bird in flight is about to take the head off of the swimming one, or at least skim its back with its feet. It didn’t of course but it reminds this old Montana farm boy of the Plains Indian tradition of counting coup\u00a0<\/a> – striking an enemy and surviving the encounter. As a kid I was steeped in many of those traditions, partly because of the nearby Blackfeet Indian Reservation and because some of my good friends were tribe members.<\/p>\n

We’d occasionally find arrowheads on the farm and there were old teepee rings there too. My family sold our farm to my uncle Floyd Dudley in the late 60’s but his son, my cousin and best friend Ken Dudley<\/a>, lived and farmed there for the rest of his life and one of his favorite things to do while walking the fields was to search for Indian artifacts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of his prized possessions was this hammer stone he found on the farm years after my family and I left. It could have been left by the early Blackfeet or perhaps it’s far more ancient than that – no one knows. That land had been farmed by my family for over 75 years so any context giving clues about its origin, if they ever existed, have been lost.<\/p>\n

When Ken died in 2007 his siblings asked me what I would like of his as a remembrance. Ken had lots of “stuff” but I immediately knew what I wanted most of all – the hammer stone. I keep it in a place of honor in my living room but it’s my intention to return it to the approximate area of the farm where it was found on my next trip up there. I think that’s where it belongs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


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

Here I have it in my hand to give a better idea of its actual size. The dark green discs at the bottom are felt pads to protect my furniture. That thing is heavy!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another part of the allure for me of growing up on the farm was finding fossil dinosaur bones. In this expansive view of the home operations of the two adjoining Dudley farms taken about 10 years ago we see a small portion of the “badlands” area of our land that was heavily eroded by a small creek (most of our actual farmland, about 3000 combined acres, is out of frame behind me and to the right). As kids we called this area the Crystal Hills and the name stuck because some pretty impressive quartz crystals were common there. But as we grew older we also discovered that fragmented dinosaur bones could be found in these eroding slopes and we spent endless hours looking for and finding them. Crystals and dinosaur bones – great fun for a kid and even for the kid in me as an adult, even though I never kept any of the bone fragments.<\/p>\n

The following will probably bore some readers to tears but for long-time followers of Feathered Photography I’m sure some of the references will be familiar and hold interest:<\/p>\n