Green-tailed Towhee (finally!)
As a result of its secretive nature the Green-tailed Towhee is one of the least well-known of all North American birds.
Category: Sparrows and Finches
Birds Dealing With Snow And Cold
Birds use a variety of tactics to deal with the harsh conditions presented by an unusually cold and snowy winter. Some are more effective than others. I thought it might be interesting to see a few of them that I’ve been able to photograph in the last several weeks. My usual disclaimer for posts relating to behaviors; many of these images are technically lacking but I think they do illustrate some of the conditions these birds are having to cope with. 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light After a fresh snow, the food source for many small birds is largely hidden and unavailable without some extraordinary measures. This juvenile White-crowned Sparrow, and others in the flock, were flitting from one snow-covered perch to another in an obvious attempt at knocking the snow off so they could get to the seeds underneath. Here you can see the snow falling away and immediately afterward the sparrow fed on the uncovered seeds. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in When it gets very cold most water sources freeze up completely which makes fish largely inacessable to Bald Eagles so many of them turn to scavenging as their primary food source. But this species adapted very well to scavenging eons ago which is one of the reasons Ben Franklin looked in disfavor at the proposal to make the Bald Eagle our national bird. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or…
Song Sparrow In A Frosty Wonderland
It’s my natural tendency to avoid public displays of sentiment (another character flaw…) but recently I’ve been reflecting on just how much I enjoy blogging and interacting with my readers. Even though I’ve never actually met most of you, I can’t help but feel that we have become “friends” on some level. And this time of year especially, I think of my friends. Friends usually share at least some common interests and for us it seems to be a mix of birds, nature and/or photography. Many of you are more knowledgeable in those areas than I am and have graciously shared your expertise and experiences with me and others. For that I am grateful. So I wanted to wish each of you the very best this holiday season. I hope you’re with family and loved ones and that your experiences over the next few days will add to your cherished memories down the road. I wish you a safe and joyous holiday season! Ron About the image: The bird is a Song Sparrow, plucking seeds from a hoar frost covered stem on a very cold and magical early morning on the refuge wetlands. You can see frost falling near the tail from the feeding activity.
Lark Sparrows – A Unique Mating Behavior
Back on May 25 of this year, on this post about Lark Sparrows, I made the following statement at the end of the post: “Now that I have some decent images of this species my next goal with them is to capture some of their unique behaviors. These birds often pass a twig from the male to the female during copulation (an impressive display of multitasking and concentration). And they do a turkey-like strut during courtship. I would love to capture either behavior.” In your comments, several of you gave me encouragement in meeting that goal and 11 days later I was at least partly able to do so. These are those images. A couple of these photos may be a little “clinical” for some, but to me it’s all behavior and it’s all interesting. Techs for all images were: 1/4000 or 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The courtship of Lark Sparrows includes behaviors found in no other songbirds. Prior to actual mating, the male struts like a turkey, with its tail sticking up to show off its white tail spots and its wings drooping to the ground. Then, before the male mounts her, he picks up a twig (or twigs) which he passes to the female just before copulation. When mating is complete (they may mate or attempt to mate up to 20 times in 3.5 minutes) the female often flies off with the twig. The courtship had already begun when I approached this mated pair. Normally, this species doesn’t allow me to get this close…
Just A Shot That I Like… # 27, Savannah Sparrow Wing Stretch
So very often when an avian subject gives the photographer a nice wing stretch the bird is either facing away or there’s no light on the face. So I always appreciate it when things work out with a shot like that. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This Savannah Sparrow (along with several others of various species) would forage in the Montana pasture grass for a while and then return to the barbed wire to preen and occasionally stretch. I like the diaphanous qualities of the right wing that allow the viewer to see the fanned tail and stretched out foot and leg through the wing feathers. Ron
Savannah Sparrow Parasitized By Cowbirds
Brown-headed Cowbirds are well-known for laying their eggs in the nests of other species – brood parasitism. A single cowbird female may lay up to 40 eggs in the nests of other species per season. More than 220 host species have been identified and at least 144 of those species have successfully raised the parasitic cowbird offspring. The physical size of the host species ranges from tiny 10 gram creepers to 150 gram meadowlarks. For a variety of reasons, the young of the parasitic cowbirds are more likely to survive than are those of the host species. The breeding success of the rare Kirtland’s Warbler has been severely reduced by cowbird brood parasitism. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 On our recent trip to sw Montana we found this Savannah Sparrow bringing food (insects, mostly young grasshoppers) to one of its fledglings on a fence near our campground. 1/1600 f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4 But the fledgling was a cowbird and not a Savannah Sparrow. Cowbirds are more than twice the size of Savannah Sparrows by weight and that difference is obvious here. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 The cowbird youngster was boisterous and rambunctious when food was brought in. I actually had the impression that the adult sparrow was a little intimidated by the size and hyperactivity of the cowbird chick and the “parent” bird didn’t stick around for long when food was delivered. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 After the chick swallowed this grasshopper the sparrow gave it another…
Some Recent Shots I Like, Despite Some Flaws
Like every other bird photographer many of the photos I take are not worth keeping. For the first few years I was shooting birds I estimated that I deleted 90% of my images. Now that I’ve become a little more discriminating that number is probably closer to 95%. Birds are incredibly difficult subjects – they’re fast, unpredictable, difficult to approach and generally uncooperative. When I’m culling images after a day in the field most shots fall under two main categories – keepers and garbage. But there’s often a few that are technically lacking for one reason or another but have some unusual or especially interesting feature that makes it difficult for me to trash them. So I don’t. Occasionally I go back through them just for the fun of it. I enjoy them and thought some of you might too so here’s a few from the past month or so. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This one’s from yesterday – a Lark Sparrow that posed and groomed for us for quite a while. Looking through the viewfinder I had no idea there was a second Lark Sparrow in the vicinity and didn’t even notice it flying through the frame until I got home and looked at it on my computer. Mia said that she’d noticed the second bird and that it chased the first bird away when it flew. Anyway, I thought the out-of-focus sparrow to the left was an interesting serendipity. I just wish the two twigs by the head weren’t there. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 500 f/4, 1.4…
Lark Sparrow
I’ve never had much luck with Lark Sparrows but this spring my fortunes with them have improved. It seems to be a banner year for them on Antelope Island and some of them even cooperate occasionally. In fact, most of the images in this post are of the same bird. It was so intent on its singing and territory declaration that it flew from perch to perch for quite a while and gave us some close looks. 1/1600, f/10, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These are large, long-tailed sparrows with a distinctive chestnut, black and white facial pattern that gives them a harlequin look. The sparrow is perched on a dried sunflower with significant depth so I went to f/10 for this shot to try to get as many of the seed heads as sharp as possible. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In this shot the same sparrow is changing its position on a sagebrush perch and I was able to catch it with a wing and tail position that I like. I do wish there were no sage leaves behind the head though. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc After it settled its position on the sage it gave me some nice eye contact. 1/3200, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’ve said before on this blog how much I enjoy sage perches but they’re not without their problems for the photographer. Dead twigs from last years growth often stick up above the…
Lazuli Buntings of the San Rafael Swell
For me Lazuli Buntings have long been an elusive subject. Though they’re common in the western U.S. I rarely see them near my home and when I’ve found them in my travels they either won’t let me get close or they’re buried in thickets where I can’t get clean shots of them. All that changed on an early June photo/camping trip to Utah’s remote and visually stunning San Rafael Swell. 1/1600, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I found the males singing on territory and more cooperative than usual since their preferred singing perch was at the top of low shrubs and they were often so involved with their melodious territorial declarations that they sometimes let me approach them quite closely. This one is perched on greasewood which provided some nice green colors in this arid habitat that they prefer. I like this good look at the bi-colored bill of the species. 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc At times one of these males would give me a clean perch and background for a typical “bird on a stick” image. 1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But more often than not the perch would be more cluttered. Here I’m less than happy with the out of focus twigs in the foreground but I liked the cottonwood “cotton” stuck to the bill. The unusual background color is from the Entrada Sandstone so common in the area. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 200, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’ve seldom seen birds get so…
Critters Among the Sunflowers of Antelope Island
Antelope Island is ablaze with color this fall, provided by the common sunflower Helianthus annus. The sunflower display is really quite spectacular this year – the most prolific I’ve ever seen it. I suspect it’s because of the very wet spring we’ve had. The sunflowers can provide a very pleasing setting for wildlife photography, whether the flowers are in focus along with your subject or out of focus to show off some pleasing and unusual color in the background bokeh. Canon 40D @ 72mm, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 320, EV +0.33 It’s unusual for me to get so close to a pronghorn that I don’t have to use a telephoto lens but these bucks are in rut right now and they’re so intent on herding their harem of females that they’re not nearly so wary of people and vehicles. So I quickly pulled out my old 40D and shot this handsome fella at only 72mm while he was right next to my pickup and staring intently at his ladies close by. This allowed me to keep many of the sunflowers relatively sharp and gave a different “feel” to the image than I usually get with my big glass. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, EV + 0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In contrast to the previous image, this Vesper Sparrow was shot with my 500mm and 1.4 teleconverter (1120mm with the crop factor of the 7D) at f/5.6 which gave me very little depth of field – just enough to get the sparrow sharp but the sunflowers in the background…
Savannah Sparrows – a Bug’s Worst Enemy
On a recent camping trip to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge a rustic old fence near where we camped was the staging area for several hunting Savannah Sparrows. They obviously had nests in the grass nearby and would regularly perch on the fence with prey in their beaks after hunting deep in the grasses. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 640, EV -0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Boy, did they eat a lot of bugs! Most any kind of Arthropod seemed to be an acceptable part of their diet but this critter was one of their favorites. I believe it to be a dragonfly larvae. Canon 7D, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 640, EV +0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc When they returned to the fence line they would often have multiple prey in their beaks. I expected them to either immediately consume it or deliver it to the nest but that seldom happened. Instead they would typically hang around on the fence for extended periods of time with the prey still in their beaks – often for 10 minutes or more before eating it or flying off to their nest with it. I can’t explain the behavior but I’m certainly not complaining about it because that little behavioral quirk gave me many opportunities to photograph them with their bills full of interesting tidbits. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV +0.00, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Their diet wasn’t limited to insects either, as it wasn’t unusual to see them with spiders. Canon…
White-crowned Sparrow Bathing in a Lilac Bush
I have a serious case of unrequited spring fever. It’s been a long and dreary winter and it’s not over yet so when I stumbled across these images from last spring a few days ago I decided they were worthy of a post. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 It was just after a spring rain in May last year when the sun came out and I noticed this male White-crowned Sparrow fluttering around in my neighbor’s lilac bush so I quickly grabbed my gear and started firing away. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/3200, f/8, ISO 640 The sparrow seemed so ecstatic over his bath that he let me get close and pretty much ignored me. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 The leaves and especially the flowers were loaded with water and the sparrow was taking full advantage of the situation. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 And the ecstasy continues. I guess there’s just something special about bathing in lilac water… Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Some of these photos are far from perfect – the light was harsh, the bird was side-lit, I often didn’t get a catch light in the eye and the contrast was high, especially…
Photographing Birds on Antelope Island
My previous post was an overview of the geology of Antelope Island and its non-bird wildlife. Here, I’ll focus on its birds. Juvenile Loggerhead Shrike begging for food Loggerhead Shrikes are common on many parts of the island during summer. They can be a challenge to approach but those few that nest close to the road eventually get used to traffic so if you photograph from your vehicle you can often get quite close. Here this juvenile was begging for food that was being delivered by a parent just out of frame to the left. Loggerhead Shrike with dragonfly Shrikes are often called “butcher birds” for their practice of temporarily impaling their prey on thorns or other sharp projections. This juvenile had done just that with the dragonfly but it wasn’t very good at it yet and in the end just decided to eat it instead of store it away. Loggerhead Shrike with spider Shrikes are opportunistic carnivores known to feed on insects, spiders, amphibians, small reptiles, rodents and other birds. This one also attempted to impale the prey before eating it. Juvenile Burrowing Owl practicing its parallax technique on me Burrowing Owls are one of my favorite species on the island though they can be difficult to locate from year to year as they often don’t seem to nest in the same burrow the next year. In the summer of 2009 there was an entire family of owls along the causeway to the island nesting under concrete rubble, as in the…
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Birds Dealing With Snow And Cold
Birds use a variety of tactics to deal with the harsh conditions presented by an unusually cold and snowy winter. Some are more effective than others. I thought it might be interesting to see a few of them that I’ve been able to photograph in the last several weeks. My usual disclaimer for posts relating to behaviors; many of these images are technically lacking but I think they do illustrate some of the conditions these birds are having to cope with. 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light After a fresh snow, the food source for many small birds is largely hidden and unavailable without some extraordinary measures. This juvenile White-crowned Sparrow, and others in the flock, were flitting from one snow-covered perch to another in an obvious attempt at knocking the snow off so they could get to the seeds underneath. Here you can see the snow falling away and immediately afterward the sparrow fed on the uncovered seeds. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in When it gets very cold most water sources freeze up completely which makes fish largely inacessable to Bald Eagles so many of them turn to scavenging as their primary food source. But this species adapted very well to scavenging eons ago which is one of the reasons Ben Franklin looked in disfavor at the proposal to make the Bald Eagle our national bird. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or…
Song Sparrow In A Frosty Wonderland
It’s my natural tendency to avoid public displays of sentiment (another character flaw…) but recently I’ve been reflecting on just how much I enjoy blogging and interacting with my readers. Even though I’ve never actually met most of you, I can’t help but feel that we have become “friends” on some level. And this time of year especially, I think of my friends. Friends usually share at least some common interests and for us it seems to be a mix of birds, nature and/or photography. Many of you are more knowledgeable in those areas than I am and have graciously shared your expertise and experiences with me and others. For that I am grateful. So I wanted to wish each of you the very best this holiday season. I hope you’re with family and loved ones and that your experiences over the next few days will add to your cherished memories down the road. I wish you a safe and joyous holiday season! Ron About the image: The bird is a Song Sparrow, plucking seeds from a hoar frost covered stem on a very cold and magical early morning on the refuge wetlands. You can see frost falling near the tail from the feeding activity.
Lark Sparrows – A Unique Mating Behavior
Back on May 25 of this year, on this post about Lark Sparrows, I made the following statement at the end of the post: “Now that I have some decent images of this species my next goal with them is to capture some of their unique behaviors. These birds often pass a twig from the male to the female during copulation (an impressive display of multitasking and concentration). And they do a turkey-like strut during courtship. I would love to capture either behavior.” In your comments, several of you gave me encouragement in meeting that goal and 11 days later I was at least partly able to do so. These are those images. A couple of these photos may be a little “clinical” for some, but to me it’s all behavior and it’s all interesting. Techs for all images were: 1/4000 or 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The courtship of Lark Sparrows includes behaviors found in no other songbirds. Prior to actual mating, the male struts like a turkey, with its tail sticking up to show off its white tail spots and its wings drooping to the ground. Then, before the male mounts her, he picks up a twig (or twigs) which he passes to the female just before copulation. When mating is complete (they may mate or attempt to mate up to 20 times in 3.5 minutes) the female often flies off with the twig. The courtship had already begun when I approached this mated pair. Normally, this species doesn’t allow me to get this close…
Just A Shot That I Like… # 27, Savannah Sparrow Wing Stretch
So very often when an avian subject gives the photographer a nice wing stretch the bird is either facing away or there’s no light on the face. So I always appreciate it when things work out with a shot like that. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This Savannah Sparrow (along with several others of various species) would forage in the Montana pasture grass for a while and then return to the barbed wire to preen and occasionally stretch. I like the diaphanous qualities of the right wing that allow the viewer to see the fanned tail and stretched out foot and leg through the wing feathers. Ron
Savannah Sparrow Parasitized By Cowbirds
Brown-headed Cowbirds are well-known for laying their eggs in the nests of other species – brood parasitism. A single cowbird female may lay up to 40 eggs in the nests of other species per season. More than 220 host species have been identified and at least 144 of those species have successfully raised the parasitic cowbird offspring. The physical size of the host species ranges from tiny 10 gram creepers to 150 gram meadowlarks. For a variety of reasons, the young of the parasitic cowbirds are more likely to survive than are those of the host species. The breeding success of the rare Kirtland’s Warbler has been severely reduced by cowbird brood parasitism. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 On our recent trip to sw Montana we found this Savannah Sparrow bringing food (insects, mostly young grasshoppers) to one of its fledglings on a fence near our campground. 1/1600 f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4 But the fledgling was a cowbird and not a Savannah Sparrow. Cowbirds are more than twice the size of Savannah Sparrows by weight and that difference is obvious here. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 The cowbird youngster was boisterous and rambunctious when food was brought in. I actually had the impression that the adult sparrow was a little intimidated by the size and hyperactivity of the cowbird chick and the “parent” bird didn’t stick around for long when food was delivered. 1/1600 f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4 After the chick swallowed this grasshopper the sparrow gave it another…
Some Recent Shots I Like, Despite Some Flaws
Like every other bird photographer many of the photos I take are not worth keeping. For the first few years I was shooting birds I estimated that I deleted 90% of my images. Now that I’ve become a little more discriminating that number is probably closer to 95%. Birds are incredibly difficult subjects – they’re fast, unpredictable, difficult to approach and generally uncooperative. When I’m culling images after a day in the field most shots fall under two main categories – keepers and garbage. But there’s often a few that are technically lacking for one reason or another but have some unusual or especially interesting feature that makes it difficult for me to trash them. So I don’t. Occasionally I go back through them just for the fun of it. I enjoy them and thought some of you might too so here’s a few from the past month or so. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This one’s from yesterday – a Lark Sparrow that posed and groomed for us for quite a while. Looking through the viewfinder I had no idea there was a second Lark Sparrow in the vicinity and didn’t even notice it flying through the frame until I got home and looked at it on my computer. Mia said that she’d noticed the second bird and that it chased the first bird away when it flew. Anyway, I thought the out-of-focus sparrow to the left was an interesting serendipity. I just wish the two twigs by the head weren’t there. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 500 f/4, 1.4…
Lark Sparrow
I’ve never had much luck with Lark Sparrows but this spring my fortunes with them have improved. It seems to be a banner year for them on Antelope Island and some of them even cooperate occasionally. In fact, most of the images in this post are of the same bird. It was so intent on its singing and territory declaration that it flew from perch to perch for quite a while and gave us some close looks. 1/1600, f/10, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These are large, long-tailed sparrows with a distinctive chestnut, black and white facial pattern that gives them a harlequin look. The sparrow is perched on a dried sunflower with significant depth so I went to f/10 for this shot to try to get as many of the seed heads as sharp as possible. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In this shot the same sparrow is changing its position on a sagebrush perch and I was able to catch it with a wing and tail position that I like. I do wish there were no sage leaves behind the head though. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc After it settled its position on the sage it gave me some nice eye contact. 1/3200, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’ve said before on this blog how much I enjoy sage perches but they’re not without their problems for the photographer. Dead twigs from last years growth often stick up above the…
Lazuli Buntings of the San Rafael Swell
For me Lazuli Buntings have long been an elusive subject. Though they’re common in the western U.S. I rarely see them near my home and when I’ve found them in my travels they either won’t let me get close or they’re buried in thickets where I can’t get clean shots of them. All that changed on an early June photo/camping trip to Utah’s remote and visually stunning San Rafael Swell. 1/1600, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I found the males singing on territory and more cooperative than usual since their preferred singing perch was at the top of low shrubs and they were often so involved with their melodious territorial declarations that they sometimes let me approach them quite closely. This one is perched on greasewood which provided some nice green colors in this arid habitat that they prefer. I like this good look at the bi-colored bill of the species. 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc At times one of these males would give me a clean perch and background for a typical “bird on a stick” image. 1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But more often than not the perch would be more cluttered. Here I’m less than happy with the out of focus twigs in the foreground but I liked the cottonwood “cotton” stuck to the bill. The unusual background color is from the Entrada Sandstone so common in the area. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 200, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’ve seldom seen birds get so…
Critters Among the Sunflowers of Antelope Island
Antelope Island is ablaze with color this fall, provided by the common sunflower Helianthus annus. The sunflower display is really quite spectacular this year – the most prolific I’ve ever seen it. I suspect it’s because of the very wet spring we’ve had. The sunflowers can provide a very pleasing setting for wildlife photography, whether the flowers are in focus along with your subject or out of focus to show off some pleasing and unusual color in the background bokeh. Canon 40D @ 72mm, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 320, EV +0.33 It’s unusual for me to get so close to a pronghorn that I don’t have to use a telephoto lens but these bucks are in rut right now and they’re so intent on herding their harem of females that they’re not nearly so wary of people and vehicles. So I quickly pulled out my old 40D and shot this handsome fella at only 72mm while he was right next to my pickup and staring intently at his ladies close by. This allowed me to keep many of the sunflowers relatively sharp and gave a different “feel” to the image than I usually get with my big glass. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, EV + 0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In contrast to the previous image, this Vesper Sparrow was shot with my 500mm and 1.4 teleconverter (1120mm with the crop factor of the 7D) at f/5.6 which gave me very little depth of field – just enough to get the sparrow sharp but the sunflowers in the background…
Savannah Sparrows – a Bug’s Worst Enemy
On a recent camping trip to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge a rustic old fence near where we camped was the staging area for several hunting Savannah Sparrows. They obviously had nests in the grass nearby and would regularly perch on the fence with prey in their beaks after hunting deep in the grasses. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 640, EV -0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Boy, did they eat a lot of bugs! Most any kind of Arthropod seemed to be an acceptable part of their diet but this critter was one of their favorites. I believe it to be a dragonfly larvae. Canon 7D, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 640, EV +0.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc When they returned to the fence line they would often have multiple prey in their beaks. I expected them to either immediately consume it or deliver it to the nest but that seldom happened. Instead they would typically hang around on the fence for extended periods of time with the prey still in their beaks – often for 10 minutes or more before eating it or flying off to their nest with it. I can’t explain the behavior but I’m certainly not complaining about it because that little behavioral quirk gave me many opportunities to photograph them with their bills full of interesting tidbits. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV +0.00, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Their diet wasn’t limited to insects either, as it wasn’t unusual to see them with spiders. Canon…
White-crowned Sparrow Bathing in a Lilac Bush
I have a serious case of unrequited spring fever. It’s been a long and dreary winter and it’s not over yet so when I stumbled across these images from last spring a few days ago I decided they were worthy of a post. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 It was just after a spring rain in May last year when the sun came out and I noticed this male White-crowned Sparrow fluttering around in my neighbor’s lilac bush so I quickly grabbed my gear and started firing away. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/3200, f/8, ISO 640 The sparrow seemed so ecstatic over his bath that he let me get close and pretty much ignored me. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 The leaves and especially the flowers were loaded with water and the sparrow was taking full advantage of the situation. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 And the ecstasy continues. I guess there’s just something special about bathing in lilac water… Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Some of these photos are far from perfect – the light was harsh, the bird was side-lit, I often didn’t get a catch light in the eye and the contrast was high, especially…
Photographing Birds on Antelope Island
My previous post was an overview of the geology of Antelope Island and its non-bird wildlife. Here, I’ll focus on its birds. Juvenile Loggerhead Shrike begging for food Loggerhead Shrikes are common on many parts of the island during summer. They can be a challenge to approach but those few that nest close to the road eventually get used to traffic so if you photograph from your vehicle you can often get quite close. Here this juvenile was begging for food that was being delivered by a parent just out of frame to the left. Loggerhead Shrike with dragonfly Shrikes are often called “butcher birds” for their practice of temporarily impaling their prey on thorns or other sharp projections. This juvenile had done just that with the dragonfly but it wasn’t very good at it yet and in the end just decided to eat it instead of store it away. Loggerhead Shrike with spider Shrikes are opportunistic carnivores known to feed on insects, spiders, amphibians, small reptiles, rodents and other birds. This one also attempted to impale the prey before eating it. Juvenile Burrowing Owl practicing its parallax technique on me Burrowing Owls are one of my favorite species on the island though they can be difficult to locate from year to year as they often don’t seem to nest in the same burrow the next year. In the summer of 2009 there was an entire family of owls along the causeway to the island nesting under concrete rubble, as in the…