{"id":96661,"date":"2021-03-31T05:15:29","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T11:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=96661"},"modified":"2021-03-31T05:40:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T11:40:03","slug":"male-yellow-headed-blackbird-displaying-in-low-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/31\/male-yellow-headed-blackbird-displaying-in-low-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Yellow-headed Blackbird Displaying In Low Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

A species I should post more often than I do.<\/p>\n

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1\/160, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently I’ve been having fun exploring some of my oldest image files and they don’t come much older than these photos of a male Yellow-headed Blackbird displaying at Bear River MBR way back in early June of 2008. The legs splayed out between adjacent perches and the fanned tail are pretty typical of these displays but this time he chose not to flare his wings as they so often do.<\/p>\n

If this photo looks familiar it’s because I posted a different photo of him last year.<\/p>\n

This shot caught him “singing”. I put that word in quotes because their call\/song is far from melodious – some folks describe their song as sounding like a rusty gate opening. You can decide for yourself if you agree<\/a><\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

As you can tell by my image techs I was photographing this bird in extremely low light so I was lucky to get him sharp at such slow shutter speeds. I remember being surprised by how much detail I managed to get on a mostly black bird with so few photons bouncing around.<\/p>\n

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1\/160, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Two shots in the burst later he flared his tail even more which revealed brown tones that I don’t often see (or at least notice) in this species. Usually the blacks really do look black.<\/p>\n

Readers in many parts of North America never see Yellow-headed Blackbirds and for some reason I don’t post photos of them very often so I figured it was about time to begin rectifying that shortcoming. In spring and summer they’re common around here so maybe I’ve been taking them for granted.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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A species I should post more often than I do.<\/p>\n

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