{"id":94899,"date":"2021-02-14T06:13:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-14T13:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=94899"},"modified":"2021-02-14T06:13:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T13:13:19","slug":"spotted-towhee-at-the-beginning-of-yesterdays-snowstorm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/14\/spotted-towhee-at-the-beginning-of-yesterdays-snowstorm\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotted Towhee At The Beginning Of Yesterday’s Snowstorm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damn tough shooting conditions but I found a bunch of birds in an unexpected place.<\/p>\n

Late yesterday afternoon when our drizzly rain was finally beginning to turn to light snow I was desperate to get a bird, any bird, in my viewfinder so I visited several of our local ponds looking for photo ops. Within minutes it was obvious I was wasting my time so I headed for home. At the last minute, on a whim, I decided to detour to a nearby spot on the Jordan River I’d been to before. I’d never had any luck there in the past, not a single time, but like I often say, “You never know unless you go”.<\/p>\n

I told you I was desperate…<\/p>\n

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1\/400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I was blown away to find birds everywhere and they were close, so close I had to remove my teleconverter. They were obviously stoking their internal furnaces with food before nightfall and before the snow got so thick it would make food hard to find. Mostly they were juvenile and adult White-crowned Sparrows with a few Dark-eyed Juncos thrown into the mix. At times I estimated that there was almost a hundred birds on the ground and in the bushes right in front of me. It was truly a feeding frenzy.<\/p>\n

But after a while I spotted a single and very timid Spotted Towhee. ‘He’ spent most of his time buried in the bushes but occasionally he’d come out and join the other sparrows in their search for food. In the low light of the storm I had very little shutter speed for such a herky-jerky bird so out of the many hundreds of photos I took of him I’ll only keep a handful.<\/p>\n

This is one of my earlier shots of him, taken when it was just barely snowing and there was little snow on the ground.<\/p>\n

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1\/400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

A few minutes later the snow was beginning to build up, even on top of his tail.<\/p>\n

Nearly the entire time he was out in the open he was performing his patented and frenzied ‘bilateral scratching’ technique as he looked for food so at these shutter speeds most of my photos of him were soft. In this shot I was mostly lucky to get the front part of the bird sharp.<\/p>\n

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Jordan River at beginning of snowstorm – cell phone shot<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s a much wider view of the snowy, poorly lit scene with a jogging path at the bottom of the frame and the Jordan River in the middle background. All the sparrows, including the towhee, were foraging for food in the open area between the bushes and the path. Sharp eyes may be able to spot a few of the sparrows just above the paved path.<\/p>\n

Those same sharp eyes can probably see what may be a Bullock’s Oriole nest hanging down from the tree on the left.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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