![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/wilsons-snipe-6748-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"wilsons-snipe-6748-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nThe elusive Wilson’s Snipe. Three of them.<\/p>\n
This species is one of the most abundant and widespread shorebirds in North America but they’re very difficult to spot in their habitat. Here’s how Cornell’s Birds of North America Online puts it:\u00a0“This is an elusive species; the usual view of a Wilson’s Snipe is as it flushes from grass or sedges.”<\/p>\n
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1\/1600, f\/7.1, 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<\/em><\/p>\n But yesterday morning at Farmington I was lucky enough to get close to several of them as they were feeding in the shallow water. I’m not even going to bellyache about the messy setting.<\/p>\n This species always looks odd to me. I think it’s because their eyes are set so very far back on their heads. This unusual eye position provides “full vision to both sides and a binocular overlap to the rear” so they can detect approaching predators (or photographers) while their bill is fully buried in the water or mud.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/7.1, 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<\/em><\/p>\n This bird watched me carefully for a\u00a0 few moments and after determining I was no threat it went back to feeding.<\/p>\n You may have noticed that I cropped this image more tightly than usual and I’m curious if my readers can figure out why I did so before scrolling to the next photo. There’s a pretty strong hint in the image of my motivation for cropping so tightly on the bird.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A looser crop of the same photo reveals why. There’s part of another snipe in the frame to the right that I didn’t want to distract from the other bird. Part of the “intruder’s” bill can be seen in the previous version of the image but with that tight crop I figured most viewers wouldn’t spot it or be distracted by it because the part of the bill we can see looks like just another stem poking out of the water.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I grabbed my smaller zoom lens for a few shots so I could get more of the birds comfortably in the frame. There were actually four of them in this area but when a 5th snipe flew by close overhead the other birds took off and joined it so my session with them was abruptly over.<\/p>\n Other than these snipes and a few Snowy Egrets it was a slow morning for bird photography at Farmington. I’m hoping that approaching colder weather brings some more birds in. They’re forecasting snow for the northern Utah valleys by Sunday and that could be a good thing for bird photographers.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS – Regarding the winter storm moving in. We’ll only get the tail end of it here in northern Utah but the area near our Montana family farm is probably going to be hammered. They’re predicting 15-36″ of snow in the valleys of northwest Montana and tallies will be much higher in the mountains. Blizzard conditions are predicted since winds will be as strong as tropical-storm-force, with gusts at hurricane-force. <\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/wilsons-snipe-6753-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"wilsons-snipe-6753-ron-dudley\\"")
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