{"id":45634,"date":"2017-03-18T05:50:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T11:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=45634"},"modified":"2025-12-06T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T18:21:31","slug":"photographing-chukars-on-antelope-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/03\/18\/photographing-chukars-on-antelope-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographing Chukars on Antelope Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChukarChukar male in dewy grasses<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday morning I was able to spend time photographing a pair of Chukars on Antelope Island State Park<\/a><\/span> in a grassy area that has begun to turn green. I remember how thrilled I was to photograph these upland game birds on the island even before I moved out here to Utah and I still get excited to photograph them.<\/p>\n

The image above is the only one posted here today where I had my 1.4x teleconverter attached, for the rest of the images I had to remove it.<\/p>\n

\"WatchfulWatchful male Chukar<\/span><\/p>\n

I had to remove the teleconverter because instead of moving away the Chukars moved closer to where I was inside a vehicle using it as a mobile blind and I couldn’t fit the entire birds inside of the frame.<\/p>\n

\"ChukarChukar male standing on a rock<\/span><\/p>\n

The male Chukar stood on a rock for a bit and gave me a great view of the spur on his leg. It is the knob protruding at the back of his leg about half way up. He was on the rock keeping an eye on the female who was feeding not too far away.<\/p>\n

\"ChukarChukar close up March 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he walked down off of the rock and walked closer to me and even with the teleconverter off he was too close to fit his whole body in the frame so I started taking portraits and close ups.<\/p>\n

\"ChukarChukar face<\/span><\/p>\n

The markings on the Chukar’s face are bold and the reds in the bill and orbital ring really stand out. Those stripes on the flanks do too!<\/p>\n

\"ChukarChukar profile portrait<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chukar wasn’t posing for me but I sure felt that it was. It gave me profile views of its right and left sides.<\/p>\n

\"ChukarChukar preening close up<\/span><\/p>\n

By this time I had to turn the limiter off on my 500mm lens because the bird had moved in so close with the limiter on I couldn’t focus on it.<\/p>\n

Then the male Chukar started to preen even though it was so close to the vehicle.<\/p>\n

\"FluffyFluffy Chukar portrait<\/span><\/p>\n

When he finished preening he fluffed up his feathers and seemed to give me a look. About that time a car came up behind us and we had to move, once the engine was started the Chukars moved away.<\/p>\n

I always enjoy cooperative birds and the pair of Chukars<\/span><\/a> yesterday were just that.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

To view more of my Chukar photos plus facts and information about this species click here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of these images were taken with my Nikon D500, my ISO at the beginning was 320 and I bumped it down to 250 soon after I started photographing them. My apertures were f8 and f9 and my shutter speeds ranged from 1\/320 to 1\/500.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning I was able to spend time photographing a pair of Chukars on Antelope Island State Park in a grassy area that has begun to turn green.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,27,442,1022,26],"tags":[4146,445,4773,4142,5732,5735,4062,8301,8300,4046,4019,4921,165,5734,401,5733],"class_list":["post-45634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island-state-park","category-avian","category-chukars","category-davis-county-utah","category-utah","tag-alectoris-chukar","tag-chukar","tag-chukars","tag-close-up","tag-green-grasses","tag-knob","tag-male","tag-photograph","tag-photographing","tag-portrait","tag-preening-2","tag-rock","tag-spring","tag-spur","tag-upland-game-birds","tag-watchful"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-fluffy-portrait-mia-mcpherson-7086.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-bS2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20960,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2015\/03\/16\/chukar-portrait\/","url_meta":{"origin":45634,"position":0},"title":"Chukar Portrait","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"While photographing Black-billed Magpies last week I noticed a pair of Chukars up close and decided to take portraits of the closest bird.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Springtime Chukar portrait, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9979.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9979.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/chukar-calling-sunrise-utah-mia-mcpherson-7277.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/chukar-calling-sunrise-utah-mia-mcpherson-7277.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/chukar-calling-sunrise-utah-mia-mcpherson-7277.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/chukar-calling-sunrise-utah-mia-mcpherson-7277.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14542,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/03\/10\/chukars-on-antelope-island-state-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":45634,"position":2},"title":"Chukars on Antelope Island State Park","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"After seeing few Chukars on Antelope Island State Park over the winter it is a delight to see them perching on rocks, preening, calling and warming up in the first rays of sunlight on the island again.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Preening Chukar on a Tintic Quartzite boulder, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-preening-mia-mcpherson-3682.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-preening-mia-mcpherson-3682.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Antelope Island Chukars don't just attract out of town visitors to the island, they still call in locals like myself to see, hear and photograph them.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Chukar calling from a hilltop on Antelope Island State Park, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-calling-mia-mcpherson-7952.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-calling-mia-mcpherson-7952.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chukar-calling-mia-mcpherson-7952.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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