Loggerhead Shrike – Sometimes This Is What It Takes To Get The Photo You Want – Feathered Photography

Yesterday morning on Antelope Island I did something I never do to get the shot. This may be more than you wanted to know but it’s the story behind the photo.

A young Loggerhead Shrike was hunting from bushes on the passenger side (the ‘wrong’ side) of my pickup. ‘He’ repeatedly landed on a bush right next to the road, hunted from there for 15-30 seconds, and then moved on to the next bush down the road. Three separate times I tried to maneuver my pickup on the very narrow road so I could get him in my viewfinder from my driver’s side window but he was having none of it. Each time he took off for the next perch before I could get him in focus.

So I tried a strategy I haven’t even attempted to use for years. I tried to photograph him through my open passenger window while sitting in the driver’s seat.

My lens is much too long and heavy for me to hand hold it while twisting my body to my right while shooting out that window. The interior of the cab is very large (it’s over 5 1/2′ wide from left door panel to right door panel) and my lens caddy is strapped down to the seat right next to me, so I can’t scooch over to get closer to the passenger window so I can rest my lens on it.

All I could do was reach way over and rest the end of my lens on the passenger window opening and then try (“try” is the operative word) to get my eye close enough to the viewfinder to see the shrike. In order to accomplish it I had to severely twist my body and vulnerable back.

1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

When I finally managed to do it, this is what I saw through my viewfinder. Most of the time he was looking down while hunting but I got a couple of shots of him looking my way.

But you know me, I wanted the takeoff shot so I had to hold that very uncomfortable position for as long as it took. It took a while.

1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

But I did get the takeoff shot. He’d spotted potential prey beneath him so he dove downward after it. In the next shot in the burst I lost focus on him and clipped his left wing.

Was it worth it? At this point I’m not sure. I like the takeoff shot but to get it I had to hold a twisted position that caused the metal rods in my back from a fairly recent surgery to poke places that have never been poked before. This morning my back is still tweaked.

It may not have been smart but I got ‘the shot’. I’d have felt much worse about it if I’d missed it.

Ron