{"id":71205,"date":"2019-04-24T05:45:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T11:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=71205"},"modified":"2019-04-24T06:05:36","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T12:05:36","slug":"yesterday-i-had-a-two-merlin-morning-at-bear-river-mbr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/24\/yesterday-i-had-a-two-merlin-morning-at-bear-river-mbr\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday I Had A Two Merlin Morning At Bear River MBR"},"content":{"rendered":"

On average I photograph Merlins less often than once per year so to get two of them in my viewfinder on the same morning was a momentous occasion. I didn’t get great photos of either one of them but these shots won’t be victims of my delete button either.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, 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 first Merlin, perched on the ground in a phragmites burn from last year (thus the fire scar with new emerging grasses), was clutching remnants of a small bird in its left foot. I wasn’t close enough for very good detail but the little falcon was skittish so I fired away from a distance.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, 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

I got two shots as it took off but there were many things I didn’t like about the first one so I’m not including it. I would have liked this second one much better if the Merlin’s face was turned more towards me and I hadn’t clipped a wing. But I was lucky to get it at all because my pickup was actually moving forward when I snapped my shutter.<\/p>\n

Besides, this is my first photo of a Merlin in flight with prey – imperfections or not.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 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

Over two hours later I encountered another Merlin in a location far removed from where I photographed the first one so I believe they’re highly unlikely to be the same bird. I was close to this one but the setting was messy, there’s a twig in front of its rump and a small but annoying shadow across the top of its eye.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 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

This Merlin gave me few pose variations other than to dip its head down as it watched me. I like the resulting coy look and the fact that moving its head got rid of that annoying shadow over the eye.<\/p>\n

After a few shots I began to remove my teleconverter so I’d have room for takeoff photos without clipping any body parts but the falcon took off during the 4-5 seconds it takes me to make the swap. That happens so often I’m leery of making the switch, which means I’m usually screwed no matter what\u00a0 I decide to do.<\/p>\n

I’m convinced birds do it to me deliberately…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

On average I photograph Merlins less often than once per year so to get two of them in my viewfinder on the same morning was a momentous occasion.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71207,"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":[338,6,334,392,2221],"tags":[49,2222,1228,256],"class_list":["post-71205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-merlin-diurnal-raptors","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-falco-columbarius","tag-merlin","tag-prey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/merlin-1179-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-iwt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71205","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=71205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}