A Tale OF A Barn Owl Tail

I learned something this morning.  It will likely seem inconsequential to others but it was sort of a big deal for me.    1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in A few minutes ago, while processing this recent Barn Owl image, I was once again struck by how short and stubby the square tail of this species is, especially when compared to the length of the wings.  And then some faint memory from long ago popped into my head. Bingo!  Now it all made sense.      1/320, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in By coincidence, exactly 5 years ago today I posted this image to an online nature photography critique forum (Nature Photographers Network or NPN).  At the time I was just becoming serious about my bird photography and I took the critiques I got on that forum to heart – trying to learn from my mistakes and improve my skills. In the version of the photo I submitted to NPN I didn’t recognize the “structure” marked with the red arrow as  being part of the bird so I had cropped the image in such a manner that I “clipped” the tip of that structure.  The critiques I got from the members of the forum “dinged” me for it, and rightfully so.  They all said that I had clipped the tail and in my inexperience I assumed they were right and went on with my life.  But I felt pretty silly…

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Why The Killdeer Doesn’t “Perch”

More than half of all bird species (5000+) are classified in order Passeriformes and referred to as passerines.  Passerines, sometimes known as perching birds or less accurately as songbirds, have four toes – three of them directed forward and one toe directed back. This arrangement allows for stable perching on structures such as small branches and herbaceous stems because the hind toe is opposable to the others (much like our thumbs are opposable to our fingers) which allows “grasping”. Interestingly, the tendon/bone anatomy of a passerine causes automatic closing of the foot (grasping) when the leg bends – such as when it lands on a typical perch.  This arrangement also allows passerines to sleep on a perch without falling off.   Here you can see the typical “three toe forward, one toe back” arrangement on this Savannah Sparrow that allows passerines to grasp narrow perches like branches or wires and remain stable on them.  Animals without something like this toe arrangement would be “walking a tightrope” but these birds have no problem with it.     Maintaining stability on a perch such as this would be virtually impossible without the ability to grasp, particularly in a breeze (this is a Loggerhead Shrike).     This shot of a juvenile White-crowned Sparrow gives us a better look at all four toes.     One more look at the opposable rear toe, this time on a Western Meadowlark. Ok, now to my point.  Many birds that do not typically “perch” (with exceptions) are waterfowl and shorebirds.   The Killdeer is a plover but because of the habitats…

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Short-eared Owl In A Snowy Setting

I’ve had very few good opportunities with Short-eared Owls in winter but yesterday morning along the causeway to Antelope Island my luck changed a bit for the better.   It was overcast but there was almost 6″ of fresh snow on the ground which helped slightly by reflecting some of the available light onto the bird. The setting in these three images is “high key” (light color tones with little contrast) because of all the snow.  The  background is the snow-covered lakebed of the Great Salt Lake.  High key images don’t appeal to everyone.    1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Northern Harriers and Rough-legged Hawks often hunt the causeway so when I first came across this owl my camera settings were already set for possible flight shots.  I snapped off a few images at those settings before I made adjustments.  I wasn’t particularly happy with the vegetation in front of the bird…       1/500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in but it soon flew a few hundred feet west along the causeway and perched on a rabbitbrush that gave a slightly better view of the owl.  For this shot I had maneuvered my position to get some very out of focus vegetation in the mid-background to provide at least a little bit of color back there but the difference is only slight.      1/500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up…

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Nothing Wrong With A Butt Shot Now And Again…

This isn’t the sharpest image in my portfolio but it does intrigue me.  A lot. Six days ago this Barn Owl made an unsuccessful plunge into the deep snow for a vole and soon after took off almost directly away from me.  This is one of the images I got as it lifted off in the direction of its favorite hill-top perch – a “butt shot” to be sure but I’m fascinated by the wing angle and position.    1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in This shot caught the wings toward the end of the upstroke.  The primary feathers at the end of the wings are in what appears to be an almost perfectly vertical position to allow for very little air resistance as they move to a higher position in preparation for the powered downstroke but the secondary feathers are pointed almost directly back at me. The skeletal structure of a bird’s wing is homologous (similar in position, structure, and evolutionary origin but not necessarily in function) to the forelimb of most other vertebrates (including humans) with a humerus, then radius and ulna, then metacarpals and finally phalanges at the end.  Like humans, the joint between the radius/ulna and the metacarpals is the carpal or “wrist” joint (see here if you’re curious and/or confused by the anatomy).   So the “wrist” is the joint between the primary and secondary wing feathers. Our wrist or carpal joint can be “bent” up or down and left or right but it cannot be rotated (try holding your…

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A Guide To Aging Bald Eagles

As we go into prime “eagle watching” season here in northern Utah I thought it might be timely to present a guide that would be helpful in aging Bald Eagles as they progress through the 5-6 year process of becoming adults.  Many of these younger birds are mistakenly identified as Golden Eagles by the general public. Eagles that have not reached the adult stage are referred to as immature, juveniles or sub-adults.  Plumage stages are highly variable, depending on molt sequence, age and timing so other factors like iris and beak color are also taken into account when estimating age.  Eyes gradually change from dark brown to yellow while the beak goes from blackish-gray to yellow.    1/4000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, not baited, set up or called in  The adult Bald Eagle is unmistakable with its distinctive bright white head and tail contrasting with the dark brown body and wings.      1/200, f/6.3, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in But juveniles present very differently than adults, especially in the early stages of development.  This very young bird is barely fledged and was still hanging around its nest in sw Montana.  Notice that the plumage is dark brown throughout, though they may have some white or pale mottling at this stage – especially on the underparts.  Both eye and beak are very dark.      1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in This is a first year bird during winter.     1/800, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light,…

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Harlan’s Hawk On A Coot Kill (graphic)

On January 18 I photographed this Harlan’s Hawk at Farmington Bay WMA.  Harlan’s is a relatively rare and very dark subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk that breeds in Alaska and northern Canada but winters in the western U.S. and the Great Plains.  I posted two other shots of this bird on January 20.    1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in  On this day I only had a few moments with the hawk before it took off.       1/2500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Then, on January 22, we located the bird once again within just a few yards of where it had been four days earlier.  This time it was at the bottom of a creek gully feeding on a freshly killed American Coot.  The angle was steep and it’s not the most attractive setting but the behavior was interesting so I took lots of photos of this juvenile, if for no other reason than documentation of an unusual bird enjoying a meal.       1/2500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in  The bird was only nervous with our presence for a few moments, then resumed eating its meal with enthusiasm.  Here it has a beak-full of feathers that it had a difficult time shaking off.       1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in  I spent over 5 minutes with this…

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Mallard Reflection

“Reflecting” my need to work with an image with some color for a change (after all of the snow, brutal cold and gray skies we’ve been having) and also inspired by some recent discussion with blog reader Sue Johnson regarding reflections, I’ve chosen to post something this morning that’s a little different for me. Last July I found this wild female Mallard posing and preening on a perch I liked and in warm, early morning light.    1/320, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light As I gained experience as a photographer I found myself gravitating away from reflections, often preferring instead the fine detail typically available in traditional portraits.  But for my tastes, this image provides both – good detail and a strong reflection.  I like the setting, pose, perch, light and reflection.  In fact I like the reflection (bird and water colors) at least as much as I do the live bird. The image may be a little tight for some but it’s very close to full frame, shot vertically, and I just didn’t have as much wiggle room as I would have liked.  I thought I’d present the image for your consideration anyway… Ron

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Barn Owl Hunting Adaptations And Techniques

One more Barn Owl post and then I’ll give them a rest for a while. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time watching these birds hunt and I’ve become intrigued by the process and their adaptations for doing so.  Hunting over deep snow presents unique challenges because their prey (typically voles) spends most of their time in tunnels under the surface, so the owls are often hunting by sound alone.  According to Birds of North America Online (out of Cornell) Barn Owls hunt prey by sound more effectively than any other animal ever tested (I’m unsure if this statement takes into account the use of sonar by cetaceans and ultrasonic sounds by bats but BNA seldom gets things like this wrong).    1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in They fly low and slow over the surface while watching and listening but with this much snow they usually locate the voles only by sound.   Notice that they can tuck their legs up into their ventral feathers so far that only the feet are visible.  It’s amazing that they can do so because…      1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in as you can see in this “butt shot” those legs are incredibly long.  This is an adaptation for grasping prey through deep vegetation or snow.  Their claws (nails) are unusually long and sharp and the middle nail has a pectinate inner edge, most likely an adaptation for grasping prey…

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Barn Owl Hunting Over A Hoarfrosted Hill

The Barn Owls are still hunting sporadically during daylight in northern Utah.  I’ve seen them doing so in a variety of areas and heard reports of it happening elsewhere. Some areas near the Great Salt Lake are literally “magical wonderlands” in the early mornings due to the thick layer of hoarfrost that covers nearly everything.  The frost falls off the vegetation during the day, then reforms during the night.  The hoarfrost produces a setting for my images that appeals to me. The camera settings for the images in this post were: 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4.  The owl was not baited, set up or called in.    Yesterday morning this owl was hunting along the upper edge of a steep-sided hill as it came in my general direction and then rounded the hill to my right.  In the first four shots you can see that its attention is riveted to the side of the hill where the snow cover is much less deep than it is everywhere else, which would increase the chances of spotting a vole. I chose to compose these images a little differently so that the frost-covered hunting ground becomes almost as important to the image as the bird.  If you have any thoughts on this composition I’d be interested in hearing them.     As the bird rounded the hilltop and got closer to me the frosted vegetation became more dominant in the images.     You can see that the snow on the hillside is patchy (most of the white is frost) so I believe that…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #29 – Adult Bald Eagle In Flight

Bald Eagles are a winter tradition in northern Utah.  Many hundreds of northern birds spend the winter here and for much of that time they’re dispersed over wide areas looking for easy pickings – carrion in particular.  But when concentrated food sources become available they can occasionally be found in large numbers.    1/4000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light This sometimes happens at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area when refuge personnel treat the ponds with rotenone to kill the damaging and invasive carp.  When conditions are right, Bald Eagles congregate there for the carp feast.  This bird was cruising the area around the second bridge looking for fish. Some years, when temperatures are frigid and other food sources are unavailable, provide great opportunities for birders and photographers but last year wasn’t one of them.   The winter was warm and food was available elsewhere so the eagle numbers were down significantly. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks… Ron

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Ring-necked Pheasants Struggling In Deep Snow

Native to Asia, the Ring-necked Pheasant is one of the most successful introduced bird species in North America.  They are exceptionally prized by hunters and may be the most studied game bird in the world. In Utah, as in much of their adopted range, their numbers are declining due to modern farming technologies and practices which are responsible for degradation of their preferred habitat (small farms with diversified crops and many patches of idle habitat). Collisions with vehicles are a major cause of pheasant mortality.  In a Nebraska study, 7,195 (known) pheasants were killed by vehicles in a 439 mile section of Interstate 80 in 7 years.  (I once hit a beautiful male pheasant while driving a very large U-haul truck at 65 mph.  It glanced off the windshield, which definitely got my attention, then wedged in the side-mirror, which it broke.  I  expected to be charged for the mirror but the U-haul folks were fly fishermen and were so delighted to get the tail feathers for tying flies that they let me off with no charge). During winters with heavy snowfall and severe cold these birds require dense winter cover such as cattails in wetlands, which is part of the reason they do well at Farmington Bay WMA where these photos were taken recently. Because of the snow and bright sunshine my camera techs were all over the map and pretty meaningless so I’m not including them this time.   These heavy-bodied birds are somewhat reluctant to fly so deep powdery snow presents some problems for them.  Typically they push their bodies through…

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Harlan’s Hawk

Harlan’s Hawk is today considered to be a sub-species of the Red-tailed Hawk but its classification has a colorful history as it has twice been considered a separate species and twice as a race of the Red-tailed Hawk.  The controversy continues today as several “experts” lobby to have the Harlan’s reinstated as a distinct species. In 1831 John James Audubon originally named this bird Harlan’s Buzzard, after his good friend Dr. Richard Harlan of Philadelphia.    1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Harlan’s Hawks are quite similar to western Red-tailed Hawks but typically they are “colder/blacker” in overall color, with the tendency toward dusky-white tails in the ventral view.   At rest, wing tips are obviously shorter than tail tips (easily seen here) and their breasts are variably streaked with white.        1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in In this view you can make out another identifying feature – the barring to the tips of the wing primaries (most easily seen here in the left wing). Harlan’s Hawks are found in Alaska and northern Canada but winter in the western United States and the Great Plains.  I’ve had very few (if any) photo opportunities with them but found this juvenile (light eye) two days ago at Farmington Bay. I’m always delighted to photograph a “new” bird, particularly when it’s a raptor. Ron      

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Barn Owl On A Natural Perch

I had an enjoyable day yesterday while photographing birds with Mia and Brian Gatlin, a friend from northern Arizona.  Since we shoot from my pickup I was the “designated driver” and wasn’t able to do much photography but we did see a lot of great birds and I enjoyed the conversation immensely (in spite of the good-natured but merciless teasing from Mia that I endured all day…)   1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited set up or called in Strange as it may seem, over the years I’ve had much more success getting Barn Owl shots I like while they’re in flight than I have while they’re perched because of their tendency to land on unattractive and unnatural perches like metal posts and signs.  But this owl allowed us close while perched in a tree that didn’t have too many distracting branches in the setting. Good bird! Ron

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A Compositional Conundrum

I intended this post to be a single image for my “Just A Shot That I Like” feature.  It didn’t turn out that way. Six days ago I found this Great Blue Heron on the edge of a small, partially frozen creek with an almost vertical snow bank directly behind and very close to the bird.  The heron was patient with me and I was close so I tried a variety of compositions using my 500 mm and 100-400 mm lenses.  The incredibly fast shutter speeds were because of the bright snow and my forgetfulness in adjusting settings as I was juggling two cameras and lenses. In the end I couldn’t decide which composition I preferred so I’m presenting three of them here.      1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, natural light  This relatively tight vertical shows good detail on the bird and I like the close view of the swirly marks on the snow behind the heron made by a wing as it landed.       1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 500, 100 – 400 @ 400mm, natural light Some folks gravitate toward whole-bird reflections so I’m also including this composition.  Ideally I’d prefer the bird to be slightly further left in the frame but cropping off the left makes the image too narrow vertically for my tastes and I have no more room on the right (image was taken vertically and is close to full frame).     1/6400, f/5.6, ISO 640, 100 – 400 @ 400mm, natural light A horizontal composition with the heron slightly smaller in the frame shows more of the…

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Rough-legged Hawk Mantling, Then Take-off

My encounter with this Rough-legged Hawk was a frustrating one.  It all began with a Northern Harrier on the snow-covered ground with prey (which turned out to be a Pied-billed Grebe) .  It was quite far away, even if my tc had been attached (it wasn’t), so I put my pickup in gear to drive further down the road.   Just then this hawk swooped in from behind (I couldn’t see it coming) to pilfer the prey from the harrier. By the time I got the pickup turned off and my tc attached the action between the  two raptors was over – the harrier had vamoosed with the head of the grebe (based on the photos Mia was able to get) and the roughie was on the ground with what was left.    1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Here the hawk is “mantling” the grebe.  Mantling is a behavior of raptors where they spread their wings, fan their tail and arch their body over their prey – effectively hiding it from other predators, particularly other raptors.   In this image the tail isn’t completely fanned and the bird is looking back at us rather than arching its body.   There’s a patch of blood on the snow and you can see part of the grebe under the right wing.      1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in  The hawk quickly gobbled down what was left of the grebe, inspected the…

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