High Key Gray Partridge
Snow continues to pass by where I live in northern Utah this winter so I thought I'd bring some snow to my site with a high key Gray Partridge photo.
Snow continues to pass by where I live in northern Utah this winter so I thought I'd bring some snow to my site with a high key Gray Partridge photo.
I drove to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge yesterday morning where I heard male Red-winged Blackbirds singing in the marsh.
I'm keeping it simple today and sharing a single photo of a winter Great Blue Heron in flight over the marsh at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
There is a skiff of snow on the ground again this morning and it has reminded me that I should look for winter American Robins feeding on crabapples today.
It is wintertime here in the Salt Lake Valley of northern Utah but given the lack of snow if it weren't for the cold temps you might not know that.
Yesterday morning at Farmington Bay I found and photographed a second winter Black-crowned Night Heron at the edge of the frozen marsh.
What we can see are greenish, lobed feet and a dark, rounded body. With just those two identification features can you guess which bird these feet belong to?
Today I wanted to share some of the Christmas Day bird photos I have taken through the years out in the field and close to home.
During the winter there are times I am able to photograph Barn Owls in flight during the day when the snow is deep and the temps are bitter cold.
I love to photograph birds on the wing. It doesn't matter if my subject is as small as a hummingbird, as large as an eagle, as slow as a gliding pelican, or as fast as a stooping falcon as long as it is a bird.
Two years and one day ago I only photographed two birds on a trip out into the West Desert and this light morph Ferruginous Hawk made the trip well worth the journey out into the cold.
In 2018 fossil hunters in Siberia found a extremely well preserved bird seven meters down a tunnel in permafrost that turned out to be a 46,000 year old Horned Lark.
There are days I spend as much time looking at the scenery as I do photographing birds because I think we live on an amazingly beautiful planet.
You might wonder why I decided to use an American Robin photo on my Thanksgiving post today and I will explain how I picked this image.
Lately I've been seeing and hearing more and more Canada Geese close to home and that has made me start thinking about winter, snowstorms, whiteouts and high key images of birds.
The name "Great Blue Heron" has always seemed off to me because these large herons are much more gray than they are blue.
When the weather turns colder, the clouds gather, and the snow falls I still have plenty of birds to photograph here in northern Utah.
Today bison are being reintroduced to lands that they were extirpated from centuries ago and for bison lovers that is cause for celebration of this iconic mammal.
Being concerned about shorebirds in harsh winter weather isn't unusual but despite their delicate appearance these shorebirds are tough.
I took this photo of a Ring-billed Gull walking through the snow in whiteout conditions on December 30, 2019 at a pond not far from where I live.
Just viewing this winter photo of the refuge made me feel refreshed and cooler. I also realized it might be hot now but cooler weather will be here before long.
I woke this morning and opened my living room window to the smell of rain in the air and even in the darkness I could see that the street was wet and I am okay with that, we need the moisture.
I took hundreds of photos of the tom Wild Turkey fanning his tail, walking on the dirt road, strutting and displaying for the hens I could not see. And for those moments all seemed right in the world.
I photographed this adult male Horned Lark singing on a snow-topped fence post three days ago after a spring snow fell overnight in the West Desert.
Someone at sometime had tossed a soda can into the junipers and the Wild Turkey hen walked right in front of it during the few seconds she was out in the open.
I have taken thousands of photos of Uinta Ground Squirrels in green grasses, on rocks, climbing stumps, at their burrows, and in sagebrush but not a single image of them in the snow.
This may have been my last chance this winter to photograph a Great Blue Heron on ice so I am glad I took photos of it as it landed and cautiously walked around on the ice.
Every winter since I moved to northern Utah in 2009 I have found a few Double-crested Cormorants overwintering at my local ponds but this winter has been very different.
Yesterday I shared a photo of a Bald Eagle resting on the icy marsh at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and this morning I am sharing a Canada Goose doing exactly the same thing.
Three days ago I photographed an adult Bald Eagle resting on the frost-covered, icy marsh at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah.