{"id":89309,"date":"2020-09-08T06:29:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T12:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=89309"},"modified":"2020-09-08T09:11:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T15:11:36","slug":"sage-thrasher-perched-and-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/08\/sage-thrasher-perched-and-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage Thrasher Perched and In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

And also being more than a little clumsy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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

Two days ago in northern Utah I found a hotspot for Sage Thrashers near a mixed clump of Fragrant Sumac and Wild Rose bushes. About a half dozen thrashers kept coming in to feed on the sumac berries and they would land on some of the dead branches near the top of the bushes before diving in and gorging themselves.<\/p>\n

Even though this bird chose a rather cluttered perch ‘he’ was more cooperative than most so I got quite a few photos of him perched here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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

At one point he tried to change his position on the perch and lost his balance in the process. His reaction to his predicament made me smile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/p>\n

But he stabilized himself again and posed some more.<\/p>\n

At this point of course my goal was takeoff or flight shots and this time…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/p>\n

I succeeded, despite the fact that he took off in my general direction. Given his direction of takeoff this wing position is probably about the best I could hope for.<\/p>\n

This was probably the last I’ll see of Sage Thrashers this year. In Utah the vast majority of them will have migrated south by the middle of this month and they won’t start coming back until April of next year.<\/p>\n

I’ll definitely miss having them around.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On an unrelated note:<\/em><\/p>\n

Readers have often heard me complain about the woefully inaccurate predictions of weather forecasters but every once in a polka-dot moon they get it right. Yesterday our forecast for last night and this morning was for rain and wind gusts up to hurricane force near our canyons and that’s exactly what we had during the night. At the moment our high winds are intermittent – it’ll be reasonably calm for a while and then all hell will break loose. As I write this it’s still dark o’clock out there but a few minutes ago I could hear debris of some kind being blown down the street.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I’m thankful for three things related to this storm:<\/em><\/p>\n