{"id":77221,"date":"2019-10-18T06:12:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T12:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=77221"},"modified":"2019-10-18T06:25:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T12:25:41","slug":"western-meadowlark-intruder-on-the-rockpile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/18\/western-meadowlark-intruder-on-the-rockpile\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Meadowlark – Intruder On The Rockpile"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western Meadowlarks have split personalities.<\/p>\n

During breeding season when they spend endless hours singing on territory they’re incredibly “sticky” and typically allow the photographer a close approach (at least around here). Often I have to be careful to not get too close for my big lens – a problem I wish I had with most other songbirds. But for the rest of the year they’re spooky as hell. Usually I don’t\/can’t photograph them for about 8 months of the year because I can’t get close enough and when winters are warmer some of them stick around all year long. It’s frustrating.<\/p>\n

The same can be true for many other songbirds but in my experience to a much lesser degree. It’s like meadowlarks flip a switch in early August and there’s nothing in-between.<\/p>\n

I want to be up front about the photos that follow. They have little meaning for me as “great shots”- they fall short of that.\u00a0 But when a bird acts out of character and it’s to my advantage I take notice so I thought birders and bird photographers who follow my blog might be interested too.<\/p>\n

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Two days ago while photographing American Pipits on a large pile of rocks this Western Meadowlark landed on top of the pile and no more than 20′ from me. It was a little nervous about me being so close so it didn’t give me any pose variety but it stayed there as it watched me for quite a while. This photo was taken with my smaller zoom lens at only 400mm.<\/p>\n

I was close to flabbergasted because I hadn’t been anywhere near this close to a meadowlark for months and they’re very common around here. I think the many nearby pipits were a little taken aback too.<\/p>\n

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This shot was taken with my 500mm lens. It’s full frame (uncropped) except for a sliver taken off of the left side of the frame for composition purposes.<\/p>\n

I can only speculate about why the bird came in so close. My best guess is that I had been at the rockpile (inside my pickup) photographing pipits for so long that the meadowlark thought my vehicle was just part of the landscape and by the time it spotted me clicking away inside my pickup it had already landed close and nothing happened so it stayed.<\/p>\n

Most will probably think it’s a waste of time to speculate about motivation – after all, birds are largely unpredictable by nature and every serious bird photographer has had similar experiences.\u00a0But I can’t help myself – a meadowlark so close I could almost touch it with a long stick in mid-October gets my attention. Nearly always this time of year they fly off before I’m within 100′ of them.<\/p>\n

I often refer to my pickup as my “mobile blind” because birds are much less afraid of vehicles than they are of humans on foot. I guess this was just more evidence of that fortunate phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Notes: <\/em><\/p>\n