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<\/p>\nA double whammy.<\/p>\n
After many days of bad weather and light, yesterday morning had great promise. At 5 AM it was still cloudy in Salt Lake City but the satellite map showed clear skies moving in quickly from the north and the hourly forecast said it would be sunny at Brigham City by 8 AM. So at 6:15 we headed for Bear River MBR, feeling confident that we’d have a morning with birds in good light. It’s almost a 90 minute drive for me to get to Bear River so I rarely make the trip unless I’m confident of good light.<\/p>\n
But by the time we got to the refuge the approaching clear skies had stalled just a few miles north of us so we were socked in with clouds and had poor light all morning. It was extremely frustrating because the boundary between clouds and sun was almost directly overhead but far enough north of us to keep the sun behind clouds. Whammy #1.<\/p>\n
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Then when we arrived at the gate to the refuge auto loop tour it was closed. Poop!<\/p>\n
The gate is supposed to open automatically at sunrise which was 6:58 AM yesterday but it didn’t open until 7:47, 49 minutes late! Afterwards we found out that the gate timer had been malfunctioning for days and hadn’t been fixed. And this isn’t the first time it had happened to us. Whammy #2.<\/p>\n
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The morning was definitely not beginning well and because of poor light it didn’t get much better. Bird numbers were pretty good but without decent light my photos were not. Following are some of my better Tundra Swan shots from the morning but don’t have high expectations.<\/p>\n
Good birds + bad light = mediocre photographs.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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 The swans were abundant and many were close to the road but that’s mostly because my pickup was the first vehicle they saw that morning. Those close to the road generally took off for more remote parts of the refuge as I approached and I imagine they stayed there all day.<\/p>\n Here I caught a group of four of them in flight with the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains in the background.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, 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<\/p>\n There were many opportunities to photograph swans taking off from up close but the light and the occasional photo-bombing swan didn’t cooperate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/7.1, 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<\/p>\n Further out the ponds were a mix of ice and open water. In this area the swans had been resting on the ice while most of the rest of the waterfowl were in the water. Apparently the pair of Pintails at the bottom of the frame thought they were swans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, 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<\/p>\n The light was so low that even closeup shots of swans in flight didn’t include catch lights in their eyes. In this instance it didn’t help that the swan was backlit by the little light we had.<\/p>\n I’ve always said that I want Feathered Photography to be about more than just high quality, pretty photos of birds. I also want it to be about field ethics, conservation issues, behaviors and bird photography techniques and experiences. Well, bad days in the field are definitely a part of bird photography so today I decided to document one of mine.<\/p>\n Bird photography ain’t easy.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A double whammy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/tundra-swan-3893b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"tundra-swan-3893b-ron-dudley\\"")
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