This post is a potpourri of photos from last week’s Montana trip. I’ll include shots of mammals and scenery so there will be no common theme that runs through all the images other than the trip itself. Travelogues are not my forte and some of these images aren’t of the highest quality but they illustrate some interesting behaviors that I wanted to share.
At 5:30 yesterday morning Mia and I almost decided to stay home rather than make the hour-long drive to Antelope Island because the area up north looked to be socked in with clouds (the “Farmington Curse” I’ve mentioned before) but after we picked up our traditional “shooting breakfast” (chocolate donuts) we chose to take our chances and go anyway – a choice I’m glad we made.
Last week we spent a few days camping and exploring Utah’s west desert. A herd of Mule Deer composed of over a dozen animals hung around the general vicinity of our campsite for most of the time we were there. They still had most of their winter coat so they were scruffy and sun-bleached but they displayed a couple of interesting behaviors that I was able to photograph.
Last fall I drove up just as this scenario was playing out. This guy was a biker (bicycle) who had laid his bike down on the road and approached this bison much too closely on foot to get a few photos with his point and shoot. I just knew bad stuff was going to happen so I quickly aimed my camera just as the bison charged this bozo.
I’m primarily a bird photographer but when I’m in the field I do see other types of wildlife and I’m not hesitant to photograph them in the least.
Before Europeans came to North America and cleared forests which modified the environment into the agricultural and suburban landscapes of today, the range of the Brown-headed Cowbird was limited to the short-grass plains where they followed the almost endless herds of American Bison as they fed on the insects stirred up by those wandering behemoths. Early settlers so strongly associated them with bison that they were called “Buffalo Birds”. Today that relationship still exists wherever limited numbers of bison can still be found. Antelope Island is one of those places. One of the many challenges facing the cowbird was obtaining enough moisture as it followed the bison herds over the hot, rolling plains. In late summer several years ago I photographed a cowbird behavior that illustrated one of the ways they solved that problem. I found this huge bull languishing in the broiling sun next to a boulder that it had been using as a scratching post. A group of Brown-headed Cowbirds were in the vicinity but at first I wasn’t paying much attention to them. Then this female (at frame bottom) flew in close… and began flying at the nostrils of the bull. Initially I was unsure about what she was doing but she did it repeatedly and eventually it became clear that she was… drinking the mucus-laden secretions from the bison’s nostrils. She would actually hover in place as she gobbled down the long, stringy strands of mucus. Not a pretty sight and perhaps a bit unsettling to our human sensibilities but what an incredibly adaptive behavior…
I have an appointment early this morning so I don’t have time for a detailed, organized post so I thought I’d present a little potpourri from the last few weeks. Though none of these images are spectacular, there’s something about each one of them that appealed to me in some way. Common Ravens are a hugely challenging subject for me because of their uncooperative behavior and the difficulty of getting detail in the blacks. For some reason, these birds really seem to eat a lot of snow, which this one had been doing just before take-off. I do wish the head were slightly sharper but I like the remnants of the snow-eating behavior and how cleanly the bird is presented against the background which is the Great Salt Lake with the snow-covered shoreline at bottom right. Finding water that isn’t ice-covered around here isn’t easy, for me or for the critters, but I think that’s the only reason this Muskrat came as close to me as it did. I found this one at a pond close to my home. Ok, not a classic wing position for sure but the aerodynamic profile of this fast flying Prairie Falcon still appealed to me. I also like the eye contact and crisp detail in flight. Life is tough for Coyotes right now as they live in a stark white world of deep snow which makes survival difficult. Many of them wear an almost perpetual snow mask from pushing their faces through the snow as they try to follow…
Ok, here it is only the middle of January and I’ve already had my fill of frigid temperatures, snow and inversions. This post is my temporary escape from it all – to spring green, warm temperatures and cute animal babies. In May of 2010 I found a den of Red Fox Kits at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. The den was only about 15′ from the road edge and I never left my pickup or the road while photographing the youngsters. Some of the images here (there are lots of them) have technical issues of composition and light angle but hey, rambunctious fox kits are a challenge to photograph. At least that’s my excuse… The photography was frenetic. I used three different cameras and lenses (500mm with and without tc, 100-400 zoom and 17-85 zoom). I missed a lot of interesting shots while switching gear – fun and frustrating at the same time. I’m leaving out camera exif data this time – just too much work and I don’t have the time this morning. Sorry Dwynn… At first there was a single kit out of the den. Then there were two. Three. And finally, four – you can see the top of the head of the fourth one as it emerges from the den. This is the only shot I kept that included all four kits. These youngsters aren’t as red as one might expect because they were covered in gray dust from playing in the dirt and crawling through the den. I…
Yesterday morning I witnessed quite the little drama on Antelope Island. Two of them, really. This post will attempt to document what I saw. I lost sharp focus on a couple of these shots and some of the action was far away but I hope the images I include here will give you a feeling for all the excitement that unfolded. Going north on the ranch road we spotted four coyotes. Three of them crossed the road and walked slowly west while one of them left the area. At first I didn’t think they were in hunting mode, rather that they had a destination in mind. But this one detected a vole under the 6″ deep snow. From its body language it was obvious that it was able to hear the vole, even through all that snow. I’ve deliberately cropped this image to include the second coyote in the background. Notice in this shot, and the next two, that the background coyote is intensely watching something in front of and above it (there’s a relatively high mountain in that direction). Coyote #1 begins a pounce toward the source of the sound. The next image in the burst. It lands in the snow but apparently missed the vole. It stopped to listen again for a few seconds then pounced one more time. With its nose buried, it pushed through the snow like a snowplow for several feet. I believe that it was following the scent of the…
Long-tailed Weasels are elusive and fascinating critters. Some interesting information about them might include the following: sexually dimorphic, females 10 to 15% smaller than males the name is appropriate as the length of their tail can equal up to 70% of the head and body length eyes are black in daylight but glow a bright, emerald-green in a spotlight at night like other mustelids, have anal scent glands that produce a liquid with a strong, musky odor go through delayed implantation, they mate in July-Aug but implantation (and growth) of fertilized egg into uterine wall is delayed until March but after implantation the embryo develops for only 4 weeks before birth. This timing allows for birth in spring when prey is abundant. are obligate carnivores, prefer prey fresh or alive, seldom eat carrion aggressive and fearless hunters, often killing prey much larger than themselves with a bite to the neck favorite prey includes mice, rats, chipmunks, squirrels, moles, shrews, rabbits and chickens are “surplus killers”, often killing more than they can consume And they are occasional cannibals! Previously I posted two images from this encounter with a cannibalistic weasel at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. These three photos are new to my blog. This weasel had killed one of its kin and was trying to run with the body along the road at the refuge. It was having a very difficult time carrying that long corpse through all the vegetation, which was probably the only thing that slowed it down enough for me to manage…
New Year’s morning on Antelope Island was a cloudy, low-light affair. It turned mostly sunny as we left for home in late morning and on the causeway we passed flocks of birders on their way to the island for their first day of birding in the New Year. I couldn’t help but notice the irony – us photographers who needed good light didn’t get any and the birders who don’t, did… But despite the low light I was able to photograph two coyote hunting techniques that I thought were interesting. 1/800, f/8, ISO 500, 100-400 @ 150 mm, natural light This coyote was on the edge of a large hill overlooking the frozen shoreline of the Great Salt Lake far below. I was very close to the animal but it was so intent on scanning the marshy area below for prey that it simply ignored me. At one point it stood on its hind legs with its front legs on a large, snow-covered boulder to give it an even more elevated view of the hunting grounds down below. I hoped that it would look back at me but it never did, though I think this pose, with just enough of the muzzle in view to show the direction the coyote was looking, well illustrates the hunting behavior. I was pleasantly surprised with one element of this photo. I was much too close to this coyote to use my 500mm lens so I had grabbed my other 7D with the 100-400 attached and backed the zoom down to 150mm. …
Coyotes sometimes prowl the causeway to Antelope Island early in the morning. While they’ll certainly take the occasional vole they may come across, voles aren’t really their intended quarry. There are far more voles on the island than there are along the causeway. Coyotes come onto the causeway to scavenge. 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, not baited During winter there are many ducks along the causeway and occasionally one of them dies – an easy meal for a coyote. But most often these coyotes are after falcon leftovers. Peregrine Falcons and Prairie falcons often hunt the causeway and most ducks are too large for either species to completely consume, so there’s nearly always leftovers. Three days ago I found this coyote with a duck. The bird appeared to be frozen so I suspect it was carrion. Here, the coyote couldn’t decide which way to go with its meal – left or right, because the causeway is narrow and the animal is confined by the lake in the back and the road in front, which gave me an indecisive posture that I like (despite the side light). Ron
I’m of the strong opinion that baiting wild animals of any kind for photographic purposes (or most any other purpose, with very few exceptions) is a despicable practice. It often puts the critter at risk in a variety of different ways and no photo is worth that. I’ve railed against baiting before on this blog so I won’t go into all the details once again here. But this morning I saw another example of why I despise this practice so much. The weather has been dreary and overcast for so long that I haven’t been out photographing for a while, but this morning we decided to head for Antelope Island just to get “out there” and ease our cabin fever a little, despite the clouds. As we came around a small curve on the island we noticed this coyote in the middle of the road. I could hardly believe it when I saw that it was feeding on dog food that someone had obviously spread down the center of the road in an attempt to lure coyotes up close and into an area where they wouldn’t be obscured by vegetation. And it worked! Even as close as we were, the coyote was intent on eating all of the dog food before it left the area. After taking a few documentary photos I drove up to the spot and then we picked up the kibbels and threw them away from the road (we probably should have taken them with us but I didn’t think of it at the time). We then reported what we saw…
A perch (when it’s not a fish) is defined as “a roost for a bird” or “a prominent resting place”. Most of the perched critters I photograph have feathers, but not all of them. Many mammals like to perch up high on rocks, small hills or other natural or man-made structures in order to have a better view of their surroundings. In the case of predators, like coyotes, they often do so while looking for prey. Some small mammals (prairie dogs and ground squirrels, for example) often elevate their position in order to watch for predators. 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Getting a clear, relatively unobstructed shot of a coyote can be very difficult because of the types of habitat they tend to prefer. But sometimes I don’t think it’s necessary to get them in the clear. This coyote was hunting voles just as the sun was coming up. It deliberately placed itself in the shade of the sunflowers to be less easily seen as it watched and listened for rodents. Even though only about half of the coyote is visible, I still like the shot because it shows behavior and I think the sunflowers add a nice touch. There’s just enough light in the right eye to make this work for me. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But when the coyote alone is the primary subject of the image, a relatively clear view of the entire animal is often preferred. That’s when the photographer can take advantage of the…
Please don’t expect great photography with this post. My purpose here is simply to document an interesting behavior. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years observing coyotes and I’ve seen them eat a variety of rodents (especially voles), birds and carrion but yesterday on Antelope Island I observed something new – grazing coyotes! I found a group of four of them on a steep hillside next to the road and they were very definitely eating grass. I’ll simply let these images speak for themselves. This was the only half-way decent image I was able to get with my 500mm that included all four coyotes. I guess the thought of coyotes eating grass is just something I’d never considered before but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Most domestic dog owners are well aware that their pets occasionally eat grass. Studies have shown that grass appears in 14 – 43% of all wolf scat in North America and grass in coyote and fox scat is so common as to be unremarkable. I watched as three of these four coyotes consumed grass and I suspect the fourth one was doing the same but it was mostly hidden behind sagebrush so I couldn’t be sure. There is just something so very incongruous about a group of canine carnivores slowly moving across a hillside while grazing on grass, like a herd of bison or elk. I thought it was an interesting behavioral display. Ron
