A Potpourri Of Recent Birds And Critters

It’s been a while since I published a potpourri post so I figured it was about time. Each of the following 8 images was taken over the last 8 days in places like Bear River MBR, Antelope Island, Farmington Bay WMA or other favorite haunts of mine in northern Utah.

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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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A Mixed Bag Of Recent Birds

These images were all taken over the last eight days, either at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge or Antelope Island.  Another one of my “potpourri” posts with no common theme except “feathers”.    1/640, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4 The Willets have finally come up on the island for their mating activities (as opposed to the shoreline for recuperation after migration) and I like to try to catch them perched high on the sagebrush where they call loudly to other Willets.       1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Western Meadowlarks are in their glory right now and their distinctive songs reverberate all over the island.      1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I got closer to this one than I usually can.      1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4  This Loggerhead Shrike was grooming peacefully when I noticed a distinct change in its behavior.      1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4 A Common Raven flew low overhead and this was the shrike’s reaction.  It flattened its body out almost into a bullet shape and pointed that bullet at the raven as it passed.  I’m guessing it was an instinctive behavior to present the smallest profile possible to a larger bird that might be a potential threat.  It was comical to watch it turn as the raven flew by to keep its body pointed in the larger birds direction.      1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’m always happy to catch a Chukar perched on a boulder, especially when it isn’t one of the…

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