Category: Blogging

I started this record of our recent trip to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge with a shot of an American Avocet and a White-faced Ibis. If I had had a shot that included those two and a Black-necked Stilt, birds I call Tres Compadres because they are so often seen together. So, after featuring the other two, I thought I would end this review of our trip with some shots of the White-Faced Ibis.

I’ll have to admit that I usually end up presenting shots of White-faced Ibis last because I find them the hardest to edit. I shoot almost all my photos in RAW format because it gives me the best way to adjust colors. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know how to adjust shadows and whites in shots of White-faced Ibis so that the photo looks like what I actually saw.

I’m never really sure what I saw because the color of the plumage is never the same. ChatGPT offers this description of its color:

The White-faced Ibis is not actually white overall. Its body is predominantly a dark, glossy color that changes depending on the light.

Key coloration includes:

• Body: Deep chestnut-brown to dark reddish-brown.
• Wings and back: Iridescent, with metallic green, bronze, purple, and magenta highlights that shimmer in sunlight.
• Face (breeding season): A thin border of white feathers surrounds the bare reddish facial skin, giving the bird its common name.
• Eyes: Bright red in adults during the breeding season.
• Legs: Reddish to pinkish.

Outside the breeding season, the white border around the face becomes much less distinct or disappears, making the bird look darker overall.

So, although it’s called a “White-faced” Ibis, only the narrow facial border is white during breeding season. The rest of the bird is a rich, dark brown with a striking iridescent green and purple sheen.

To complicate matters, the birds like to feed in the reeds, which create their own irregular shadows. Even though I lightened this shot a little bit, the bright colors are barely noticeable. I’ll have to admit that because my glasses turn dark in bright sunlight, birds often seem darker than they really are.

This shot emphasizes the dark reddish chest, but I could have easily popped the colors so the chest stands out more than it does here, but that would have drawn attention away from that remarkable beak.

I “cheated” on this shot, lightening the subject and darkening the background because it was nearly white — certainly not the bluish color it appeared to be when I took this shot.

I really don’t like it when photographers “pop” the colors in scenics, making real-life experiences seem less powerful than they really are, but the more you work with photos, the more you learn that they are less realistic then they are representative.

Where you find American Avocets, you will usually find Black-Necked Stilts. Bear River is no exception, though on this visit we saw a lot more Avocets than Stilts. I tend to prefer pictures of Avocets to pictures of Black-Necked Stilts, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to get good shots of the Stilts.

Usually, I prefer close-ups like this shot of a Stilt probing the mud flats for food,

or this shot of one taken at medium range with it’s reflection in the water,

but my favorite shot on this visit was this long shot showing the stilt in its natural habitat.

Sometimes I think we let our equipment determine what we photograph and how we photograph it. There’s no arguing that expensive equipment can capture better photographs when used well, but our equipment also tends to determine what we emphasize in our photography. I’ve spent a lot of money on telephoto lenses (probably far too much), so I tend to emphasize closeups and ignore better shots I might have gotten if I’d backed off the zoom.

Close-ups can show us details we would otherwise never see, but they eliminate the surrounding environment. By necessity, the photographer feels that environment, but it can’t be experienced in the same way sitting in front of a computer screen.

The Avocets we saw on the alternate auto tour were acting very differently from the large group pictured on the previous blog entry. They were acting the way I would expect them to act after years of photographing them. All of them we saw on the temporary auto route were paired up and feeding together,

or nesting, with a mate standing protectively nearby.

We saw several nesting beside the road, so close that I worried about the safety of their chicks when they hatched.

The only violence we saw here was an American Avocet chasing away a Black-Necked Stilt that might have been too close to its nest.

I’ll have to admit that if we didn’t live so far away, I would be there regularly to get shots of the Avocet chicks about now.

I’ve been photographing Avocets so long I seldom see (or capture) anything I haven’t already recorded. However, this scene was unlike anything I had ever seen before. In fact, I am still unable to figure out what was going on and whether or not it is a normal part of mating season.

It was rowdy enough that it reminded me of nearly forgotten nights at closing time in bars when there were not enough women for everyone who had spent the evening getting drunk. I’ll have to admit, though, that it might be easier for me to understand what was going on if I could tell the difference between male and female avocets.

These four Avocets caught my attention because they clearly squabbling among each other and one was nearly submerged.

The argument seemed to end when one of the Avocets chased another one away,

but then a different Avocet chased the other two away

It wasn’t long, though, before they were back again and definitely fighting, or attempting to have sex.

Even more landed shortly afterwards and continued the squabble.

I couldn’t really find anything online that explained what is going on, but several sources noted that aggression is common during breeding season and there is a phenomena known as “circling” that seems suggested by the last shot.