Killdeer – Fire And Ice (plus a hawk mystery)

Fire and ice on the first day of spring – a setting that’s just a little bit different for this Killdeer.

 

killdeer 1604 ron dudley

1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

A few days ago Bear River MBR performed some controlled burns to deal with the invasive and spreading phragmites which left behind some patchy scorched earth habitat. Within a very short time it will turn green and recover but right now those areas are black and appear lifeless. Yesterday I caught this Killdeer foraging in the area and when it paused on a patch of ground frost I thought the contrast between the ice, the blackened grasses and the surviving greenery made for a rather unique setting for the bird in early morning light.

 

As I was reviewing my other images from yesterday I found one of them that temporarily threw my brain for a loop so I decided to include it here for a little fun and variety.

 

red-tailed hawk 2060 ron dudley

1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

Later in the morning this adult female (I know her sex for behavioral reasons) Red-tailed Hawk took off in my direction as she lifted off from a power pole. The instant I saw the image my mind was confused by something about the right wing and where it attaches to the body. Please look at the image and see if it confuses your eye in any way.

The wing’s point of attachment appeared to be at the top of the back instead of at the shoulder, which would also make the right wing significantly longer than the left wing. I had to come back to the image several times before I figured out what was really going on.

My visual confusion was caused by the shadow of an overhead wire that runs along the leading edge of the wing and then up over the back and lower neck, which makes it appear (to my eye at least) that the wing is abnormally long and is attached at the top of the back. Notice that the angle of the shadow of another wire on the wooden beam matches the angle of the shadow on the bird perfectly. The left side of the flared reddish tail further confused my perception because at first it appeared to be an extension of the oddly shaped and sized wing. It almost looks like a bad toupee up there…

As we all know the effects of optical illusions can be highly variable on different people – some aren’t fooled at all, some are fooled at first but eventually figure it out and others have difficulty seeing what’s really going on even after it’s been pointed out to them. I’m curious to know if anyone else had the same problem with this image as I did.

Or perhaps it’s only me. Sometimes I’m easily fooled…

Ron

 

 

28 Comments

  1. So what about the “shadow” at the outer end of the left wing? My brain knows that’s not a shadow, nothing there for a shadow to fall on, but I can’t see what’s going on out there…and, since we were questioning….
    Sue

    • Sue, Looks to me like the shadow you refer to is just caused by the different angle of the feathers there relative to the sun. But I do see what you mean – it almost looks like there’s another layer of feathers there.

  2. Count me in the easily fooled category. Of course.

  3. Okay, color me easily fooled. I didn’t “see” what was going on until my nose was rubbed in it! What threw me off as much as the shadow was the tail. Really like the killdeer. We have lots our here, but they haven’t arrived yet. Your posts are fun! Thanks!

  4. To me, killdeer always have a forlorn look to their face. Does anyone else notice this expression? Sorry the hawk photo made sense to me despite the funky shadow from the wire. Most people think of birds as not very flexible. They can twist and turn into amazing positions even during takeoff.

    • “Sorry the hawk photo made sense to me despite the funky shadow from the wire”

      No need to apologize, April – the results are what they are. So far, from folks who have mentioned whether or not they were originally confused by the image, the results are tied 4 to 4 if you include me in the data. Two of the four who were not confused said that they might have been if I hadn’t provided an initial heads-up.

      Personally I’ve never thought of Killdeer as having a forlorn look.

  5. Nice shot of the Killdeer. I immediately liked the contrast of white frost, black earth, patchy grass, and low, clear, sharp shot of the bird with a touch of blue in the upper background. On the hawk, I agree with Jo Ann that you gave us a heads-up so it took me about 2 seconds to see what was going on. Wonder how long it would have taken without the heads-up?

    • “Wonder how long it would have taken without the heads-up?”

      Dave, maybe I shouldn’t have forewarned folks about my confusion over the image. It was hard to know how to introduce the image without initially giving too much away. Thank you.

  6. Re: hawk photo–There are so many things strange about this image…probably the worst one you ever posted..not much seems “right”….love the little Kildeer in warm morning light…they jave such a haunting sound…

    • “probably the worst one you ever posted”

      Not sure about that, Patty. I’ve posted some pretty “bad” ones when I’m illustrating behaviors and/or physical features…

  7. Count me in with the not-fooled group, but to be fair, I’m cheating. I’ve seen that kind of slightly twisted takeoff a lot of times, albeit not in one of your a frozen-in-time spectacular photos. Another of my favorite photographers, Rob Palmer, likes to catch those images, too, but he likes to concentrate on longwings (falcons), so I’m cheating with his photos, too! LOL!
    We went hunting on Saturday, and while it turned into a fiasco of poor prior planning with timing, after “my” birds left the field, we were treated with a pair of Harriers, followed shortly by a pair of redtails performing a mating flight (complete with a brief talon locking) just above the nearby tree line. When they were done and we’d scraped our jaws off the ground with the wonder of it all, we were treated to a female Kestrel hover hunting not 40 yards away from us, catching her vole, and then dining on a nearby “Restricted Area” sign. I really wished I’d had Skye (FAMKE)out on the fist so she could see how this hunting thing is DONE! I’ve concluded she’s never caught anything before, and that while she’s got the flying thing down now, I need to go back to Hunting 101 with her.
    Just so y’all know, chat is opening today on the Cornell redtail hawk nest cam and I’m a scheduled moderator, so gotta go. Big Red laid her third egg on Saturday, so the Zen of Incubation has begun with both Big Red and Ezra sharing nest duty. Another 35-ISH days from now, we’ll have three fuzzball bobbleheads to watch and enjoy. YEE HAW!!

    • Laura, I’ve been teased several times lately by sky-dancing harriers but they’ve always been too far away and in poor light for photography when they do it. Maybe one day…

      Feel free to post a link to the Cornell RTH nestcam chat here if you like.

    • So where’s the missing link????!!!

      • Ah the missing link…y’all know I’m the weakest link don’t you? 😀 I MEANT to post the link but evidently I turned my head and it leaked out.
        Here it is: http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/16/Red-tailed_Hawks/ I keep saying if I had a brain I’d be dangerous. Luckily I don’t, so I’m not…LOL! At this point, chat is open from 10 to 2, but it should expand as we go along. That said, we could really use some more moderators.
        Oh Ron, the Harriers were definitely in poor light, as were the redtails. If we could only move the sun every now and again–just skoosh it over just a little. And we’d put it back!
        And yes, it took me about five minutes to figure out what the missing link could be…DOH!

  8. Jorge H. Oliveira

    You can count me in. I was fooled too. Funny how optical illusion can change our perception.

    I love Killdeers. Long time ago it was a fearless one that gave me the will to photograph birds. It just stood there for quite a while staring at me as if saying “how do you like this pose, and this one and another…” The Portuguese name for it is “Borrelho”

    • Thanks for the feedback, Jorge.

      When birds pose cooperatively for a long time it’s something photographers seldom forget. It doesn’t happen very often and I think it’s natural for us to feel some gratitude when it does. I know I do. And I usually thank them out loud for doing so. Silly I know but it’s just something I do…

  9. To start Ron – I love both of these beautiful birds you captured. I did what I usually do with any of your photos – I looked at the Killdeer 1st. After I read your story about the controlled burn and the environment surrounding the bird, I went back and looked at the “whole” picture. What you told us about it added to the interest but I would have missed it – LOL!! As for the Red-tailed Hawk your comment just above the photo did give me a “heads-up” so what I initially saw was the shadow of the wire across the hawk’s right wing and shoulder but the hawk didn’t interrupt the shadow of that wire on the cross bar as the hawk is passing over it. It is so neat to read your observation that you discover when “culling” your photos. You have a wonderful memory of what was going on at the time and sharing that with us is what gives us so much more from your blog!!

    • “You have a wonderful memory of what was going on at the time”

      Thanks, Jo Ann, but I must admit that my memory is reinforced by going back and looking at other images I took of the bird. In this case those other images didn’t show anything unusual about the hawk so that helped me to narrow it down, especially since I could see shadows of the wire in some of them.

  10. Yes, yes I was fooled until I focused on what you said relative to the shadow. Didn’t see the shadow at first, only saw the line going to the tail, felt that was the optical illusion. Wow, what a difference, but what a teaching moment as well! Many thanks for this image, I would have gone off and felt this hawk survived a malformed wing! dumb!
    Ever thought optical illusions might be why some animals fall prey to predators?

  11. Gave me a “what the hell! ?” until you mentioned the wire and then it still took a minute to really see what was going on! 🙂 Nice shot of both the Killdeer and hawk!

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