![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/white-crowned-sparrow-2162-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"white-crowned-sparrow-2162-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWhite-crowned Sparrows are common in my area but they’re a favorite of mine and I see far more juveniles than adults so I was pleased to get this handsome adult up close in my viewfinder.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, 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<\/em><\/p>\n The photo was taken three days ago at the entrance to the new Eccles Wildlife Education Center in Farmington. Despite the oversized, unnatural perch and insufficient depth of field to get the tail sharp I like the softly graded light on the bird, the hint of a color change at the top of the background and the bit of breakfast left on the sparrow’s bill.<\/p>\n Apologies for such a perfunctory edition of Feathered Photography this morning (at least the part related to birds) but I have an excuse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had a very busy day yesterday so I didn’t have time to work up a post last night and had to do it quickly this morning. I hadn’t seen my younger sister Sheila who lives in Montrose, CO for a very long time but she was here for a visit yesterday and “Baby Sis” took precedence. My homemade cheese manicotti was on the menu and that means this bird photographer transforms into a chef for a day because whenever I make manicotti I make multiple pans of it for future use and as a gift for my good friend and ex-wife Diane Olson who’s addicted to the stuff and has been for decades. It’s a complicated, time-consuming and messy process and when you have to go through hell and high water to find one of the ingredients as I did yesterday it certainly doesn’t help. Long story…<\/p>\n We had a wonderful visit and overate last night. And Sheila brought me a surprise gift – a couple of small boxes of old family photographs and documents that I’m itching to go through. From a few previous blog posts some readers may remember that I have a fascinating, unique and often tragic family history that I’ve traced back through early Mormon Pioneers in Utah, the first landing of Puritans in Massachusetts (there’s something ironic about my<\/em> ancestors being founding Puritans), Thomas Dudley who was Governor of Massachusetts multiple times and even signed the original charter for Harvard College and two of my direct Dudley ancestors who lost their heads to the executioner’s axe at the Tower of London courtesy of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I. A slightly more distant relative, Sir Robert Dudley, very nearly married Queen Elizabeth I.<\/p>\n I don’t expect to find anything going back that far in Sheila’s boxes but I’m hoping for some old family photos I’ve never seen and\/or old documents that I was unaware of.<\/p>\n But mostly I was just happy to see Sheila again. She’s a good “kid” and the two of us are the last ones left out of the five of us so we had a lot of reminiscing and catching up to do.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" White-crowned Sparrows are common in my area but they’re a favorite of mine and I see far more juveniles than adults so I was pleased to get this handsome adult up close in my viewfinder.<\/p>\n