Plus a couple of other songbirds I found in the area.
1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 800, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
Yesterday morning while looking for birds I did a lot of driving with little to show for it. Once again, White-crowned Sparrows were the most abundant birds I found and even they were hard to come by. This juvenile was buried in a fragrant sumac bush while eating its fruits (drupes) and this is the clearest shot I got of ‘him’.
The good news is that there seems to be a lot of sumac fruit in the area. Sumac fruits are an important winter food for birds and small mammals and if not eaten they often remain on the plant until spring.
1/5000, f/5.6, ISO 1250, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
There was a single Dark-eyed Junco flitting around with the sparrows but the junco simply refused to come in close. This photo has been cropped significantly (and it shows) but it’s my first halfway decent junco photo of the year.
1/6400, f/5.6, ISO 1250, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
The only other songbird I saw in the area was a single Spotted Towhee who stayed even further away than the junco and taunted me with his jaunty pose.
It was a disappointing, frustrating morning. Its saving grace was that the weather was cold and beautiful, I was in a remote and largely wild area and I only saw one other vehicle in the three hours I was there. The hermit in me loved that aspect of my morning.
Ron
Coulee crawl? More information please.
I am glad that you weren’t totally skunked and delighted in all of these captures.
We had your wind. And lots of it. Hopefully it has settled down today. It is early yet but I cannot hear it so far.
EC, a coulee is a deep, steep-sided ravine. It’s a lot of physical work for hunters carrying rifles and gear, and for photographers carrying cameras and gear, or for anyone else really, to climb up and down those coulees looking for their “prey”. Colloquially the process is sometimes called coulee crawling, maybe especially in Montana.
Thank you.
Love the colors of foliage and matching birds! Your morning of solitude (and no wind) sounds even better! Juncoes are particularly adorable, I must add.
Thanks, Chris. Thankfully, there was no wind to speak of, like there had been the day before. If there had been, at 24° it would have been bone-chilling.
Really like the light and color in the second one. We now have the White-crowned everywhere. Every time I saw a bird move in a shrub and was focusing in it was just another WCS. Beautiful birds though and always welcome.
I saw one lone Snow Goose at our Watson Lake. Bosque del Apache has 50,000 and we have one.
Everett, with these sparrows it’s typically feast or famine. And when it comes to Snow Geese, at least you have one.
Interesting that each of the birds chose a setting that complements their coloring so nicely. All different, all lovely!
Glad you enjoyed them, Carolyn. Thanks.
Well Ron, I’d say it was a good morning. Allowing yourself the taste of solitude in such a beautiful area on such a beautiful day is a gift.
And for what it is worth, I enjoyed the photos.
p.s. Watched the Ken Burns masterpiece, “The American Buffalo”. Highly recommend it to everyone.
I’m glad you watched it, Michael. I thought it was epic and I don’t use that word very often.
All three are pretty birds in beautiful habitat…. 🙂 We still have a few Dark-eyed Juncos around and, yesterday a couple of sparrows of some sorts. The Red-breasted Nuthatches continue to entertain clearing out the Chicadees when they come to the feeder and scolding me when I’m in their flight path…:)
Glad you could get out and about undisturbed! Big game hunting open here and some activity and luck in our area so far even with cold, crappy, weather making “coulee crawling” a challenge… 😉
Thanks, Judy. At my age and condition I can’t even imagine myself coulee crawling, for whatever purpose. It used to be a favorite activity of mine and I miss it, a lot.
We’ve had a number of hunters over time that “once was enough!” LMAO tho I no longer coulee crawl either!