{"id":95034,"date":"2021-02-17T05:58:26","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T12:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=95034"},"modified":"2021-02-17T07:54:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T14:54:54","slug":"a-couple-of-merlins-a-sunset-and-a-significant-snowstorm-finally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/17\/a-couple-of-merlins-a-sunset-and-a-significant-snowstorm-finally\/","title":{"rendered":"A Couple Of Merlins, A Sunset And A Significant Snowstorm – Finally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landscape photos aren’t standard fare from me but I had to include this one.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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

My camping trip to Montana’s Centennial Valley in September of 2015 was a good one for Merlins. I found this one enjoying breakfast on an old gate post one morning. I can’t identify the prey other than the fact that it’s a small bird.<\/p>\n

Some may not like the tip of another post poking into the frame at lower right and I’m not sure about it myself. It would be easy to remove but that’s not my style. Besides, I think the background is even more boring without it.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 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 photographed this Merlin on the evening of the same day. I think both the background and the lighting are more appealing than in the first photo, even though there’s no prey to add visual interest.<\/p>\n

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On this trip we camped along the edge of Lower Red Rock Lake and at that location both sunrises and sunsets can be pretty spectacular. This is a sunset on one of our first days at the lake that trip. My camping trailer is just out of frame to the left. I’ve made the photo larger than usual so folks can better appreciate the sunset and perhaps even see the birds on the lake on the left. They’re tiny but they’re there.<\/p>\n

This scene is in stark contrast to…<\/p>\n

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Cell phone photo<\/em><\/p>\n

what it looks like out my back door right now (photo taken at 5 AM this morning).<\/p>\n

It’s a near-blizzard out there. UDOT is advising all motorists to stay off the roads until at least 10 AM and many school districts are expected to announce closures at about 6 AM. Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons are forecast to get over 2 feet of snow and some areas in the nearby mountains should get significantly more than that.<\/p>\n

For much of the winter I’ve been bitching and moaning on my blog about our lack of snow. You’re unlikely to hear more of that bellyaching from me anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landscape photos aren’t standard fare from me but I had to include this one.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,392,2221,1493,360],"tags":[555,2222,1752,1228,220,256,263,2356,1062,311],"class_list":["post-95034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-merlin-diurnal-raptors","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","tag-centennial-valley","tag-falco-columbarius","tag-lower-red-rock-lake","tag-merlin","tag-montana-2","tag-prey","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-snowstorm","tag-sunset","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/merlin-2916-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-oIO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}