Male Great-tailed Grackle Portraits
I don't often get to have Great-tailed Grackles in my viewfinder let alone have them close enough to take portraits of them so when the opportunity presents itself, I jump at the chance.
I don't often get to have Great-tailed Grackles in my viewfinder let alone have them close enough to take portraits of them so when the opportunity presents itself, I jump at the chance.
As common as Dark-eyed Juncos are I have surprisingly few photos of them in my galleries and that is why I get excited when I can add a new photo of them to my portfolio.
It is currently the time of the year when I start looking for Rough-legged Hawks in northern Utah, the temps have dipped below freezing, there has been frost on the ground and now we've had our first snow.
Because I arrived at twilight that morning and had a clear sky I knew that I could take photos of the Great Blue Heron with the blue colored Earth's Shadow and pink Belt of Venus behind it.
Crappy images like this blurry Brown Creeper make me more determined to get the photos I want, that I salivate over and dream about.
I don't see nearly as many harriers over the marshes at Farmington Bay as I used to five to ten years ago but the marshes have changed some since I moved to northern Utah.
I'd watched the Greater Yellowlegs foraging and most of the time the prey was too tiny to see but this little fish was a nice catch for the shorebird and for me.
I photographed this adult White-crowned Sparrow about two weeks ago in northern Utah while it perched on a hackberry tree on a hill with blooming rabbitbrush in the background.
I photographed this young male Red-winged Blackbird singing at the top of a Russian olive tree at Farmington Bay WMA nine days ago.
What I like about this male Red-breasted Nuthatch photo is the contrast of light and shadows. While I can't see all the fine feather details in the shaded part of the nuthatch what I can see is simply enough.
Two days ago I spotted a Wild Turkey tom crossing a dirt road high up in the Stansbury Mountains and to my delight there were several more males following behind him.
When it comes to accipiters I see Sharp-shinned Hawks less frequently than I do Cooper's Hawks or Northern Goshawks so when I have a Sharp-shinned Hawk in my viewfinder I become very excited.
Whatever the gender, I was delighted that the Myrtle Yellow-rumped Warbler perched in the tree long enough for me to take a nice series of images of it.
Usually when I see and photograph Savannah Sparrows they are on barbed wire, fence posts, railings or on the ground so seeing a Savannah on rocks was a nice change for me.
I photographed Utah's long-staying rare Brown Pelican again yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and as I took photos of it I worried about its future.
The Long-tailed Weasel stood up, looked around and then made a mad dash back to the west side of the road before I lost sight of it in the vegetation.
American Bitterns can be very hard to spot at times since they blend into their habitat so well because of their cryptic plumage patterns and because they are so skulky.
When I photographed this immature Yellow-rumped Warbler two days ago I couldn't tell what prey it had snagged so I was surprised when I got home and saw that the warbler had snatched a damselfly.
Yesterday morning I was able to take close up images of a male Brewer's Blackbird in the kind of light that showed all of its beautiful iridescent colors with the silky blue water of a pond in the background.
Here in northern Utah it isn't often that Myrtle and Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warblers are found perched in the same tree but four days ago that is what happened to me.
Our Clark's and Western Grebes will be leaving here soon and except for a few downy feathers on this one's forehead it looks like it is ready to take on its first migration.
Last Friday as I looked for birds in a few West Desert canyons I was serenaded by the songs and calls of Townsend's Solitaires and while I loved hearing them it was frustrating because they were either too far away or hidden from my view.
Yesterday I photographed a muskrat I found eating green filamentous algae at Farmington Bay WMA which I thought was interesting because I had never seen one eating algae before.
For a few moments yesterday morning I was absolutely enchanted by a small flock of Ruby-crowned Kinglets in Box Elder County in northern Utah.
I haven't seen a Yellow Warbler in northern Utah for sometime now and it is pretty safe to say that these birds has taken wing and have headed to warmer climes for the winter.
Even though I came home with very few photos I'm still glad I went wandering. I had great views, sunshine, birds to delight my eyes and ears and I soaked it all up like a thirsty sponge.
I haven't had any California Quail in my viewfinder since last December so a when I had the chance to photograph a male at Farmington Bay WMA nine days ago I was happy.
I have to wonder though how many people walked or drove right past this young Red-tailed Hawk and never noticed that it was even there
Autumn is a time when the seeds of many plants that the Red-winged Blackbirds feed upon have ripened and the birds are taking full advantage of the season's bounty and spend a large part of their days foraging.
I couldn't have asked for a better birdy subject yesterday morning than this relaxed and cooperative immature Cooper's Hawk and I loved the setting it was in too.