![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/american-kestrel-5831-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"american-kestrel-5831-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nSix birds and an abomination.<\/p>\n
Occasionally I like to post a sampling of bird photographs I’ve taken recently that didn’t quite make the grade for a stand-alone post but still have some redeeming qualities. Each of these photos was taken here in northern Utah over the past twelve days.<\/p>\n
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A side lit male American Kestrel warming up in the early morning sun. This was one of those situations where I had difficulty getting sharp focus on the bird, probably because of the temperature disparity between my warm lens and the cold outside air.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/black-crowned-night-heron-2946-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-crowned-night-heron-2946-ron-dudley\\"")
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A Black-crowned Night Heron in the process of moving to a new roosting spot. With this wing position most of what we can see of the bird is shades of creamy-white.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/canada-goose-6564-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"canada-goose-6564-ron-dudley.\\"")
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Canada Geese soon after takeoff from a pond. I think this photo could have been pretty neat without the extra wings of the third goose behind the bottom one. I still think it’s interesting in a confusing sort of way because the bottom goose almost looks like it has four wings..<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/coopers-hawk-7153-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"coopers-hawk-7153-ron-dudley\\"")
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A Cooper’s Hawk enjoying a snack while perched in my neighbor’s tree across the street. This photo was taken through my dirty bedroom window and it shows.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/pied-billed-grebe-7737-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"pied-billed-grebe-7737-ron-dudley\\"")
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A Pied-billed Grebe with a crayfish in its bill. This bird was chugging along at a pretty good clip, apparently in an effort to reach some nearby reeds where it could enjoy its snack without worrying about other grebes or thieving gulls making an attempt to steal the crayfish.<\/p>\n
In every shot I have of this grebe it’s holding its tongue vertically in the back of it’s mouth – perhaps in an attempt to protect it from potential damage from the claws of the crayfish.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/red-tailed-hawk-3079-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-3079-ron-dudley\\"")
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Good news about the immature Red-tailed Hawk with the injured left leg I’ve been reporting on in recent weeks. A few days ago Billy Fenimore, director of the Eccles Wildlife Center at Farmington, told me the injured hawk continues to hunt and thrive behind the Wildlife Center.<\/p>\n
Almost certainly this is that same bird, photo taken on the same morning I talked to Billy, as the hawk took off from an outhouse stack in the parking lot of the Wildlife Center. Notice that ‘she’ appears to be putting full weight on her injured left leg. When I first started photographing her she couldn’t put any weight on it. Her leg appears to be healing nicely.<\/p>\n
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OK, now for the ‘abomination’.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/model-power-boat-7114-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"model-power-boat-7114-ron-dudley.\\"")
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I’ve been visiting three city parks for bird photography for over a decade now and until the last couple of weeks I’ve never seen any of these model power boats on the ponds. But I’ve seen three of these monstrosities on one of the ponds on two different occasions recently.<\/p>\n
These screaming contraptions scare the bejesus out of the birds. When one of them hits the water the birds either leave the large pond or cower in the most inaccessible corners of of it they can find. These noisy little terrors on the water reach speeds of over 30 mph and they turn on about half a dime so birds are extremely wary of them. You can completely forget about any normal, natural behavior from birds while one of these boats is anywhere on the pond. I imagine fisherpersons feel the same way about them as the birds and I do.<\/p>\n
City parks personnel are nearly always nearby so they have to know about the model boats on the pond but they don’t do anything about them.<\/p>\n
As far as I’m concerned model power boats on urban ponds are highly inappropriate – almost in the same category as the drones that I despise.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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Six birds and an abomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n