{"id":76808,"date":"2019-10-08T06:04:16","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T12:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=76808"},"modified":"2019-10-08T06:11:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T12:11:19","slug":"ruby-crowned-kinglet-actually-out-in-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/08\/ruby-crowned-kinglet-actually-out-in-the-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruby-crowned Kinglet Actually Out In The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plus a cute and hungry muskrat thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

If you’re a Ruby-crowned Kinglet you have two cardinal rules to live by: never come completely out into the open and never stay in the same spot for more than a nanosecond. This kinglet forgot both rules.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/5.6, 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<\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed “her” two days ago in extreme Northern Utah and she wasn’t alone. There were so many kinglets in the tree that I remarked to Mia that I’d never seen that many kinglets in the same place at the same time. I couldn’t even guess how many there were but it was a bunch and that was just those I could see. There were probably many more. But typical of kinglets they wouldn’t come out in the open and play and whenever they almost did they didn’t stay long enough for me to get my lens on them. Kinglets are like that.<\/p>\n

But then this one forgot the rules and landed on a leaf right in front of me and out in the open. And she actually stayed there long enough for me to get dozens of shots. This was one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, 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<\/em><\/p>\n

Based on her gape color I’d guess she’s a hatch year bird. Many of her poses didn’t give me a look at her face or a catch light in her eye but I got both with this head turn.<\/p>\n

For some reason I keep noticing the way she grasped the leaf with her feet to use it as a perch. A single horizontal leaf supporting the entire weight of the bird is indicative of just how tiny and lightweight these birds actually are. Weighing in at only 6.5 grams this species is among North America’s smallest birds. For the sake of comparison House Sparrows weigh 28 grams, more than 4 times as much as kinglets.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, 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<\/em><\/p>\n

She even allowed me a look at her face and beautifully patterned wings and tail when she turned her back to me.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, 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<\/em><\/p>\n

Since kinglets are as small as they are they’re also proportionately fast when they take off. If I hadn’t guessed right by beginning to fire a burst before she launched I wouldn’t have had a chance of getting this shot, not even close. Of course I’m disappointed by the position of her right wing and the resulting large shadow it threw but at least that wing didn’t hide her face.<\/p>\n

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At the risk of giving today’s post an abrupt bipolar flavor I’m going to close by switching from feathers to fur. Wet fur.<\/p>\n

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Yesterday’s birding trip to Farmington Bay WMA was mostly a bust resulting in me deleting all my photos of birds but at the last minute this muskrat saved the day. It was mostly out of the water and in great morning light as it munched on brunch. The vertical cattail stalks provided a perfect semicircular and protective alcove for it to feel safe in while it was eating and at the same time the stalks framed the muskrat nicely in my photos.<\/p>\n

We have “weather” coming in soon and it’s looking like the seasons might be about to change. Lows in the 20’s and possible snow are forecast. I hope the weather front brings in some birds because their numbers around here have been pretty discouraging lately.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Plus a cute and hungry muskrat thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76810,"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":[334,2782,4708,3592],"tags":[1008,4767,469,3594,3593,311],"class_list":["post-76808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-muskrat","category-ruby-crowned-kinglets","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-kinglet-size-and-weight","tag-muskrat","tag-regulus-calendula","tag-ruby-crowned-kinglet","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/ruby-crowned-kinglet-7699-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-jYQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76808","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=76808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}