{"id":69960,"date":"2019-03-12T05:36:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T11:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=69960"},"modified":"2019-03-12T06:05:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T12:05:30","slug":"sandhill-cranes-and-a-chukar-from-yesterday-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/12\/sandhill-cranes-and-a-chukar-from-yesterday-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandhill Cranes And A Chukar From Yesterday Morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birds are finally starting to pick up on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/7.1, 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 can’t tell you how long it’s’ been since I’ve had a good birding day on Antelope Island but it’s been a very long time. I was beginning to wonder if everything with feathers had abandoned the island for good. But yesterday morning before I even got to the island proper I wondered if the tide was beginning to turn when we found a\u00a0 pair of Sandhill Cranes along the causeway. They were reasonably close and not very skittish as they foraged in the early morning light.<\/p>\n

They were partially sidelit so I didn’t get many shots I liked that included both of them but this one isn’t bad. Normally the shadow on the female’s neck would bother me but since it was cast by her protective mate and there’s still light on her face I’m ok with it.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/7.1, 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<\/p>\n

Only minutes later and almost immediately after I drove onto the island we found this cooperative Chukar in nice light. At first he was perched in a jumble of branches that gave me a busy background but it wasn’t long before he moved to this rock in a more pleasing setting.<\/p>\n

Just before encountering this bird I said out loud “I wonder if Chukars have abandoned the island altogether” so finding him was a welcome omen. I also got some nice shots of Black-billed Magpies, Western Meadowlarks and Horned Larks so for at least the next few months I shouldn’t have that defeated feeling before I even get to the island.<\/p>\n

And it shouldn’t be long before Sage Thrashers, Lark Sparrows, Long-billed Curlews, Willets and other species arrive. It’s nice to feel optimistic about Antelope Island again.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Birds are finally starting to pick up on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69962,"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":[3,334,352,1128],"tags":[31,82,743,311],"class_list":["post-69960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-chukars","category-sandhill-cranes","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-chukar","tag-sandhill-crane","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sandhill-crane-4299-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ico","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69960","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=69960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}