Just A Shot That I Like… #11, Bald Eagle In A Dramatic Flight Posture

It’s getting to be that time of year again – Bald Eagle time in Utah!  As is typical for this season their numbers in the state are increasing every day.  Eagle populations in Utah peak in January and February before many of them start heading north again.     1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4 Though it appears as if this bird was about to snag a fish from the water surface in reality it was simply coming in for a landing on the shore, just out of frame to the lower right.  I like the light on the eagle and the overall flight posture. I’m looking forward to freezing my butt off again this winter while photographing these very impressive birds.  Ron

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Kiting Rough-legged Hawk

Kiting is the ability of some birds to maintain a stable position in the air by using air currents rather than by the flapping of wings or hovering.   Last week I had a wonderful opportunity with this young Rough-legged Hawk while it was kiting in the stiff wind rising up from the Antelope Island causeway.  The light was good and the bird was cooperative and let me get close – what more could a bird photographer wish for?      1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc It was amazing to see how still in the air this bird could be – often maintaining the same relative position to the ground without significant wing movement for long periods.  I swear that if I had been using a tripod I could have focused on the bird, walked away for 10 seconds or so and then returned and snapped the shutter with the hawk still in the frame and without having had to look through the viewfinder or refocus.   A bit of a stretch perhaps, but not by a lot.       1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Much of the time the hawk was hunting – looking down into the grasses for voles.  That head position doesn’t provide the eye contact that is photographically desirable but I wanted to include a shot that illustrated hunting posture.         1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The hawk caught several voles while I was photographing it.  In this instance the bird immediately took to the air with the very young vole…      …

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Just A Shot That I Like… #10 – Prairie Falcon In Flight, With Duck Kill

This morning was cold and very windy out on Antelope Island and most of the birds seemed to have taken refuge from the freezing gale so as we left the island I figured it would be one of  those relatively rare days when I had been photographically “skunked”.   But as is so often the case, the island had a pleasant last-minute surprise in store for me.     1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This Prairie Falcon had apparently killed a duck (which I believe to be a Northern Shoveler) and was trying to defend it from two marauding ravens so the  falcon decided to haul the shoveler off to a more private and secluded dining area.  That turned out to be an unfortunate decision as very soon after this photo was taken a Bald Eagle flew in and forced the falcon to drop the duck.  The eagle flew down to the ice, retrieved the duck and nonchalantly flew off with it. The wing and back of the duck are covered with snow/ice crystals.  The out of focus lighter “blobs” in the lower background are whitecaps on the Great Salt Lake.  This falcon is the same bird I photographed a little over a month ago and posted here.  I know that to be the case because the same wing covert is askew in both birds (though it can’t be seen in this image).  I’ve now been able to photograph this falcon on four different occasions in the last few weeks.  What a treat! Ron

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Lazuli Buntings of the San Rafael Swell

For me Lazuli Buntings have long been an elusive subject.  Though they’re common in the western U.S. I rarely see them near my home and when I’ve found  them in my travels they either won’t let me get close or they’re buried in thickets where I can’t get clean shots of them.   All that changed on an early June photo/camping trip to Utah’s remote and visually stunning San Rafael Swell.     1/1600, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  I found the males singing on territory and more cooperative than usual since their preferred singing perch was at the top of low shrubs and they were often so involved with their melodious territorial declarations that they sometimes let me approach them quite closely.  This one is perched on greasewood which provided some nice green colors in this arid habitat that they prefer.  I like this good look at the bi-colored bill of the species.       1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc At times one of these males would give me a clean perch and background for a typical “bird on a stick” image.      1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But more often than not the perch would be more cluttered.    Here I’m less than happy with the out of focus twigs in the foreground but I liked the cottonwood “cotton” stuck to the bill.  The unusual background color is from the Entrada Sandstone so common in the area.       1/1250, f/8, ISO 200, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’ve seldom seen birds get so…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #9 – Rough-legged Hawk Taking Off

I was looking down on this Rough-legged Hawk from an elevated road when it decided to take off.      1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This shot illustrates both the blessing and the curse of using an attached teleconverter.  If I hadn’t been using the tc for this image I’d have had two choices: 1),  crop so that the hawk was much smaller in the frame which would have reduced the impact of the image or 2), crop so the bird was still this large in the frame which would have significantly reduced image quality and increased noise.  So I’m glad I had the tc on for this shot. However, after take-off this roughie unexpectedly flew past me very close and I clipped or cut off many body parts in most of those images.   If I hadn’t been using the tc I’d likely have been able to get some pretty spectacular flight shots with this nice background and good light.  You just never know… Ron     

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Catch Lights in Bird Photography

Broadly defined, a catch light in photography is a reflection of a light source in the eye of a subject.  In bird photography, that light source is often the sun and typically appears on the shiny, wet cornea of the bird as a single point reflection.   However, as we will see, there are variations on that theme.   Catch lights are highly desirable, to the point that many avian photographers simply delete virtually all photos that don’t have them (a painful process, to be sure).   Others resort to artificially cloning them into the eye when they don’t appear naturally – a practice that I find distasteful, even dishonest for a nature photographer (that said, I’m not adverse to running an extra round of sharpening or a Levels adjustment to enhance a subtle catch light that already exists). Natural catch lights that are a direct reflection of  the sun will appear in the upper half of the eye, usually from the 10 o’clock  to the 2 o’clock position, depending on the angle and position of the sun behind the photographer.  If the sun is behind the bird (back light) or too high in the sky, that kind of catch light will not be produced.     Without “light in the eye”, viewers perceive the eye to be lifeless, “dead” or even evil.  For this reason, cinematographers often deliberately eliminate catch lights on “the bad guys” in movies and television.   There is almost no difference between the two American Kestrel images above except for the slight head turn in the first shot that allows light from the sun…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #8 – Prairie Falcon In Warm Light

I’ve tried and failed for a long time to catch a raptor perched on the darker rocks (Farmington Canyon Complex) that are most common on the southern part of Antelope Island.  I think these rocks make much more attractive perches than the almost white and difficult to properly expose Tintic Quartzite boulders on the north portion of the island.   Last week I finally succeeded with this Prairie Falcon.    1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc As an added bonus the sun was just coming up over the Wasatch Mountains so the golden light added some warmth to the image which I like.  I only got off  a handful of shots but at least the bird turned its head into the light before it  flew off.  Based on bill color I believe it to be a first year bird.  Now if I could only get this close to a Peregrine Falcon in good light… Ron

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Harlequin Ducks Along Antelope Island Causeway Have Apparently Been Killed

As many of you are aware there have been three Harlequin Ducks along the Antelope Island causeway for many weeks now – two females and one male.  These ducks are extremely rare in Utah as there’s only been a handful of sightings of the species in our state over the years.  These three ducks have been enjoyed by bird lovers and others at the first bridge on the causeway for about six weeks this early winter.  They were quite approachable by people and were a delight to observe and photograph. According to reports, all three ducks are now dead – “harvested” by hunters.  Here’s a link to a very enlightening (in more ways than one) discussion of the reported incident on a hunting forum.  Killing these rare ducks along the causeway is apparently perfectly legal.  Whether or not it is ethical is very much open to question – including by many in the hunting community.     Harlequin Duck. Photo taken on 10/30/11 at first bridge along causeway      Female Harlequin Duck – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway     Male Harlequin Duck coming into breeding plumage – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway    Though I’m not a hunter I’ve been an avid supporter of hunting for many years – including extolling the positive effects the practice has had on wildlife populations to my high school zoology and biology classes for 33 years.  Should it turn out that the person reporting the killings of these ducks has been less than truthful and the birds turn up again in the future I…

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Just a Shot That I Like… #7 – Ring-necked Pheasant Roosting In Tree

Many folks think of Ring-necked Pheasants as strictly ground dwelling birds but that’s simply not the case.  These pheasants regularly roost in trees at night and the following morning they will often be active in the roost tree for up to an hour before descending to the ground for the rest of the day.    1/800, f/8, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Virtually every time I’ve seen these birds in trees it’s been on very cold, sunny mornings so I’ve always had the impression that they’re sunning themselves to warm up a bit.  Usually they flush to the ground for cover before I can get close enough for quality photos but this cooperative male apparently decided that his chill was more of a threat to him than I was.  He let me shoot away from close range for quite a while even though he was perhaps 20′ up in the tree and on a very exposed branch.  Long-tailed birds like pheasants and magpies can present difficult compositional problems when cropping for presentation but I though this vertical crop worked out well with him on the diagonal perch.    Ron  

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Sometimes the Prey Bites Back

I hope you’ll bear with me but this post will be more about behavior than image quality as I just didn’t have a good light angle for this little drama.  As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, one of my primary goals is to document interesting behaviors and at times that will take priority over the quality of the images.  When Rough-legged Hawks dive on prey it can be fairly dramatic.  Typically they hover high up over the potential prey for a few moments, then dive fast and at a fairly steep angle.  Occasionally they seem to hit the ground so hard that it rattles my teeth, almost making me expect them to bounce on impact.     1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I watched this hawk hover, then dive.  I think you can see from the wing position that this bird was still traveling at a good clip and at a fairly steep angle when it was only a couple of feet from the ground.   The prey was on a hill above me and buried in this vegetation so I didn’t see the impact.       1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Often these attempts at prey are unsuccessful but this time the hawk caught a vole (along with a talon-full of debris).   The bird came out of the grasses directly toward me but then turned to its left to give me a side view.     1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  This little vole had a bucket-full of attitude and didn’t want to go down…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #6 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With Prey

Sometimes conditions are marginal at best for avian photography and that often seems to be the case for me when I’m presented with an otherwise wonderful opportunity.  Then the decision must be made –  go ahead and shoot anyway, knowing it’s likely that I won’t get any keepers or just pack it in and watch and enjoy the birds?      1/640, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, noise reduction to background   Such was the case with this Short-eared Owl at Montana’s rugged and remote Centennial Valley.  It was an overcast day and there generally wasn’t enough light for photographing birds in flight but this male was regularly delivering voles to his family and would occasionally fly right by me as he did so.  I could have removed my teleconverter to get a little more shutter speed but then the owl would be quite small in the frame so I just decided to fire away and hope for the best.  Even at ISO 800 (the absolute limit for my 7D without getting too much noise) I was often getting shutter speeds of 1/500 or slower at f/5.6 – just not fast enough to get birds in flight sharp. I got lucky with this shot.  As the owl was coming in, the clouds behind me opened up slightly to allow a little more light on the bird and a shutter speed of 1/640 – just enough to get good sharpness on a relatively large and slow flying bird if your focus is well locked on to the subject.  The still shaded Centennial Mountains provided…

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