Category: Waterfowl

Coots Don’t Like Redheads

Last spring I witnessed quite the little drama between an American Coot and a mated pair of Redheads. I’m going to be a little anthropomorphic here with my narrative (and even my title) – sorry, just can’t resist.   The Redheads seemed to be minding their own business but this coot took exception when they came too close to its nest.  Here the coot is apparently looking away from the ducks but the Redheads seems to know that something’s potentially up.     And it was.     I’m always amazed at how fast the reactions of birds are.   The Redhead almost seemed to know the attack was in progress before it actually was.   You’ll notice that the coot is no closer to him in this second shot than it was in the previous one.     The Redhead seems to be trying to use some of the reeds to avoid the approaching coot.     The attack continues…     and continues…     until both birds sense that it’s over and begin to settle back down into the water.       The male Redhead reacts with what seems like a celebratory wing-flap that it survived the attack without any damage…     and then swims off contentedly with his lady.     But the coot isn’t taking any chances and lays low in the water while facing the retreating ducks with a threat pose. I was pleased to get this sequence without clipping any birds and keeping multiple subjects sharp in the  frame – not easy to do…

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Mallard Reflection

“Reflecting” my need to work with an image with some color for a change (after all of the snow, brutal cold and gray skies we’ve been having) and also inspired by some recent discussion with blog reader Sue Johnson regarding reflections, I’ve chosen to post something this morning that’s a little different for me. Last July I found this wild female Mallard posing and preening on a perch I liked and in warm, early morning light.    1/320, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light As I gained experience as a photographer I found myself gravitating away from reflections, often preferring instead the fine detail typically available in traditional portraits.  But for my tastes, this image provides both – good detail and a strong reflection.  I like the setting, pose, perch, light and reflection.  In fact I like the reflection (bird and water colors) at least as much as I do the live bird. The image may be a little tight for some but it’s very close to full frame, shot vertically, and I just didn’t have as much wiggle room as I would have liked.  I thought I’d present the image for your consideration anyway… Ron

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Christmas Birds At Farmington Bay

Christmas Day is one of our favorite times to photograph birds.  My daughter lives in Florida so I normally don’t get to spend time with family and for me bird photography is the next-best thing.  Besides, we usually have splendid isolation when we’re “out there” while everyone else is at home celebrating the holiday in a more traditional way.  A win/win situation for all. This post is dedicated to “Christmas Birds” – photos I’ve taken on Christmas Day in recent years.  I often think of these birds as extra-special Christmas presents.    1/1600, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, called in or set up This beautiful male American Kestrel is perched on a short but thick wooden pole at Farmington Bay.  The pole has been a favorite perch for kestrels and eagles for years but now an ugly bat box has been placed near the top of the pole, ruining it for photographic purposes.  I’m all for bats but I sure wish the box had been placed a few inches lower on the pole.      1/400, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, called in or set up Two years ago, this Common Merganser hung around a Farmington Bay pond for much of the winter.  I seldom saw it actively fishing.  Instead, it would just wait around until one of the many Pied-billed Grebes caught a fish and then steal it away from them – very entertaining to watch.      1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4,…

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Snow Geese On The Causeway

For the last few days there have been two Snow Geese along the causeway to Antelope Island – an adult and a juvenile.  This species nests on the arctic tundra and is in the midst of migration to more hospitable climes for the winter.  Parents stay with their young through the first winter and families generally don’t break up until they reach their breeding grounds the following spring.    1/500, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light When we relocated these two birds yesterday morning (we’d also seen them two days before) the sun had not yet cleared the elevated causeway road so the birds were still in shade.   I include this image so adult and juvenile can be compared and so that you can see the dramatic changes that occur when the warm, early morning light advances on the birds.       1/640, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  Here, the light has just reached the head and neck of the adult.      1/640, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  A few seconds later it has advanced to the feet but not to the ground.  It was interesting to watch the light move down the bird.       1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  I didn’t get a lot of action out of either bird – this yawn from the juvenile…      1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  and a wing and foot stretch was about the only “excitement”…

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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…

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Harlequin Ducks Along Antelope Island Causeway Have Apparently Been Killed

As many of you are aware there have been three Harlequin Ducks along the Antelope Island causeway for many weeks now – two females and one male.  These ducks are extremely rare in Utah as there’s only been a handful of sightings of the species in our state over the years.  These three ducks have been enjoyed by bird lovers and others at the first bridge on the causeway for about six weeks this early winter.  They were quite approachable by people and were a delight to observe and photograph. According to reports, all three ducks are now dead – “harvested” by hunters.  Here’s a link to a very enlightening (in more ways than one) discussion of the reported incident on a hunting forum.  Killing these rare ducks along the causeway is apparently perfectly legal.  Whether or not it is ethical is very much open to question – including by many in the hunting community.     Harlequin Duck. Photo taken on 10/30/11 at first bridge along causeway      Female Harlequin Duck – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway     Male Harlequin Duck coming into breeding plumage – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway    Though I’m not a hunter I’ve been an avid supporter of hunting for many years – including extolling the positive effects the practice has had on wildlife populations to my high school zoology and biology classes for 33 years.  Should it turn out that the person reporting the killings of these ducks has been less than truthful and the birds turn up again in the future I…

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Common Merganser

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser.  A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of her that I like.    500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/500, f/7.1, ISO 640 Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck – a very effective tool for holding on to their slippery prey.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot.  This was one of the exceptions.       500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/400, f/7.1, ISO 640   I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening.  Here’s one image where I succeeded.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 I’m convinced that the reason this merganser hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief.  The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen.  I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish – which is just what she’s doing in this shot.        500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400 I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser could hold her crest – from slicked back…

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Bathing Cinnamon Teal/Green-winged Teal hybrid

Though bathing is a common activity for waterfowl it can make for some interesting photographs.  I found this bird at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge at the end of May last year.    Cinnamon Teal x Green-winged Teal Hybrid male While I was processing some of the images I noticed the unusual crescent-shaped marking running through the eye to the back of the head that is typical of the Green-winged Teal.  I asked several very knowledgeable birders about this bird and they think this is a CT/GWT hybrid, which apparently is quite unusual.       Red eye looking at you through a layer of water While bathing he would repeatedly dunk his head and shoulders under water  and then lift them up, which would roll water over its back and wings.  An interesting process to watch and photograph at such close range.   Here he’s looking at me through a layer of water over his head and eye as he brings his head out of the water.       Forcing water over the back   Here’s the water on the back.        Washing the back feathers Then he would shake vigorously which would wash the back and upper wing feathers and send water droplets flying.       Rearranging the wing feathers After so much vigorous activity the feathers, particularly those in the wing, needed rearranging to put them in their proper places.       Preening after the bath  Then came the preening.  Lots of it.  Here he is grooming individual breast/lower neck feathers.       After the bath And here…

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Canvasback – Feeding and Fighting Behavior

In April of 2008 I photographed some interesting Canvasback feeding and fighting behaviors at a local pond.   At the time I was still a relative novice at bird photography so I’ll say up front that this blog post is more about the behaviors than it is about image quality.  The almost white plumage and dark head made for a tricky exposure for a beginner and there was a significant issue with specular highlights caused by reflections off of the shiny mud.      Dive, eyes open On this day there was one drake feeding quite close to me and I was very interested in the whole process.  He would continually dive down to the muck at the bottom of the pond and come up with his head completely covered in thick dark mud.  Sometimes he would dive with his eyes open, like this.       Dive, eyes closed And other times he would dive with his eyes closed.  Either way, mud and grit in the eyes never seemed to be a problem for him.       Ol’ Muddy Head 1 When he would emerge, this is what he would look like.      Ol’ Muddy Head 2  And this.  It never failed – a true mud facial.  Canvasbacks are often referred to as the “aristocrats of ducks” but it’s hard to look very aristocratic with a face full of mud.      Shakin’ the mud off Occasionally he would try to shake as much of the mud off as possible but it never seemed to change the look of him…

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Weather Loach in Utah – Another Invasive Species

  On December 12, 2007 I photographed this Common Goldeneye with a fish at Farmington Bay Wildlife Management Area.  At the time I didn’t pay much attention to what kind of fish it might be and then just kind of forgot about it.  Male Common Goldeneye with unidentified (at the time) fish    The moment of capture Then, on October 2, 2008, I took some photos of a Snowy Egret fishing, also at Farmington.  Finally, I became curious about the unusual fish – noticing the atypical elongated almost eel-like body in particular. I made some casual inquiries of refuge personnel about fish species present there but didn’t get anything definitive that would match this fish.   More time went by, then I finally showed Justina Parsons-Bernstein some of the photos and asked her about the fish.  She is the Director of The Great Salt Lake Nature Center at Farmington Bay WMA and she was also curious as to what species of fish it was so she sent some of my images to a vertebrate specialist with the state of Utah.  He keyed it out as a Weather Loach. It turns out that the Weather Loach or Dojo Loach as it is also known (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) is quite a remarkable fish.  The name Weather Loach comes from the fact that it is highly sensitive to minor changes in barometric pressure and when it perceives such a change its behaviour becomes erratic, active and animated.  Humans have kept them captive as a weather indicator for centuries.  They are a very hardy species, capable of surviving poor conditions by swallowing atmospheric…

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