Great Salt Lake Chukar

I often enjoy elements of incongruity in my images, particularly birds in unexpected settings.  Chukars prefer steep, rocky, mountainous and dry terrain so in my experience with them it is atypical to catch them in a photograph with a body of water in the background.  When it’s hot, as it is now, these birds drink large amounts of water but of course the Great Salt Lake is much too saline for them to drink from.  So they spend nearly all their time higher up on the rocky slopes and drink from the fresh water springs in the area. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However, there is one thing that draws them to the shore of the lake this time of year – brine flies.  Chukars are almost exclusively vegetarians and eat mostly leaves and seeds although they’ll consume insects “occasionally”.  But apparently they can’t resist the bounty of hordes of brine flies found along the shore of the lake during July and August (I’ve posted a shot here of a Chukar gorging on these flies) . I found this bird and several others along the shoreline yesterday.  While I didn’t actually observe them consuming flies this time I’m confident that it was the flies that attracted them to the shore. Ron

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