1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nThis bird and its mate were building their nest on Antelope Island when I caught it leaving after a delivery of nesting material. The magpies are at the stage where they alternate between bringing twigs and bringing mud to the nest but this bird’s bill wasn’t muddy as they sometimes were.<\/p>\n
I like this shot a lot. I don’t have messy twigs behind the bird, some iridescence is showing, the bird is sharp, I have a good light angle, I like the flight posture and those curled feet almost in silhouette add a nice touch.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, canvas added for composition, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n
And in the very next frame of the burst I was lucky enough to get another shot I like. In a tenth of a second the magpie had begun to bank away from me which gave me a good look at its ventral side in good light. I had to add canvas in front of the bird for composition but I was still happy to get the shot. I see it as a bonus after getting the first one.<\/p>\n
Based on the length of a magpie’s body (19″) and the relative distance between the bird and the twigs below the bird in both shots I estimate that the magpie had traveled only about 6-7″ between the two shots so this banking maneuver was done very quickly, especially for such a large bird.<\/p>\n
I realize that not everyone loves magpies but they’re one of my favorite photo subjects. Their behaviors are fascinating, they’re very smart and they’re a huge challenge to expose properly so photographing them is nearly always a learning experience on one level or another.<\/p>\n
And you’re in for a real treat if you ever get to hear the cute little gurgling sounds they make while they’re inside their domed nests. I don’t hear them make that sound elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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I rarely post photos of the same species two days in a row but yesterday I spent more time with magpies and I like these two images well enough to make an exception. More than well enough, actually. <\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70080,"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":[3,334,363,391],"tags":[31,57,146,610],"class_list":["post-70079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-flight","tag-pica-hudsonia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/black-billed-magpie-5292-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-iej","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70079","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=70079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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