Earlier this week I spent several mornings photographing a female Western Kingbird as she was constructing her nest. Out of the many hundreds of shots I took of her the third image in this post is my favorite.
We’ve been keeping an eye on this Red-tailed Hawk nest in the west desert for about three years now.
For millennia a variety of North American bird species used bison hair during nest construction but when the “buffalo” was brought to the brink of extinction by hunters in the late 1800’s that resource was essentially gone. Today there are relatively few places where bison hair is available to birds and Antelope Island is one of them.
Western Meadowlarks are good subjects for practicing take-off shots. The rule of thumb is the smaller the bird the faster the take-off, so songbirds are difficult subjects for this type of shot because of their small size and quickness.
Yesterday morning we photographed an industrious female Western Kingbird as she worked at constructing her nest. In this species the sexes are similar but only the female builds the nest. The male hung around nearby as he watched over the laborious construction process and offered his mate encouragement (that was good of him don’t you think?).
The eight minutes I spent photographing this male Northern Harrier in flight were both exhilarating and frustrating to the extreme.
I often photograph Bald Eagles in Utah during winter but for me those images have a different mood (for lack of a better word) because they’re often taken near urban environments and for me they don’t convey the feeling of wildness that I so love about the Centennial Valley. And I very seldom get anything “green” in my Utah Bald Eagle images taken in winter.
At this point in my photography “career” it’s unusual for me to get a new lifer but lately I’ve been on a roll.
So far this year Swainson’s Hawk populations seem to be a little spotty. I’m finding them in normal concentrations in some areas but in others where there’s been good numbers of them in the past they seem to be rare or nonexistent. I’m not really alarmed about it, rather I suspect this is just one more example of localized bird numbers being difficult to predict.
Whenever I get an up-close look at a bird in the wild through my lens it’s always my subconscious expectation that it will be vigorous and healthy. It disturbs me when that doesn’t turn out to be the case.
Last week on our Montana camping trip the House Wrens were incredibly persistent when trying to get long or awkwardly-shaped twigs into the nest holes in the aspen.
During our Montana camping trip last week we found a dead aspen that had five nest holes in various stages of excavation and use.
Without a doubt the most colorful bird I photographed on my camping trip last week was the male Western Tanager.
Last week we found ourselves at eye level with a small group of very wary Greater Sage Grouse.
Two days ago as I was photographing this dark morph Swainson’s Hawk on a power pole something completely unexpected happened and this time I was ready for it.
