{"id":49939,"date":"2017-12-17T04:48:44","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T11:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=49939"},"modified":"2025-08-05T17:29:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:29:37","slug":"ring-billed-gulls-flying-in-a-december-snow-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/12\/17\/ring-billed-gulls-flying-in-a-december-snow-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Ring-billed Gulls Flying in a December Snow Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ring-billedRing-billed Gull skirmish in a snow storm – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 2500, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I never saw the sun shine yesterday, it was gray, gloomy, and snow was falling hard at times but that didn’t keep me home. I did go out to photograph some birds at a pond nearby. I wanted to capture birds with the snow falling and that is what I did. There were geese, ducks, grebes, coots and plenty of gulls at the pond.<\/p>\n

The California and Ring-billed Gulls were watching the Common Goldeneyes and Pied-billed Grebes closely and as soon as they saw that they had caught a crayfish the gulls dove at them and attempted to steal the crayfish, at times they were successful. In this photo the Ring-billed Gull on the left had stolen a crayfish from a goldeneye and was being chased by another gull, the chase went of for quite a while and I don’t know if the gull was able to eat the crayfish at the end or if it was forced to drop it into the pond.<\/p>\n

\"Ring-billedRing-billed Gull in flight in a snow storm – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 2500, +1.0 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoy being able to go down to the pond in the winter and photograph the birds I find there because I know that when I get too cold I can be home, warm and have a hot drink in my hands in just a few minutes.<\/p>\n

Because the light was so low I pushed my ISO up high yesterday to get enough shutter speed to photograph the Ring-billed Gulls flying over the pond, diving towards the water and as they splashed down next to the diving ducks and grebes that they were trying to steal food from.<\/p>\n

\"AdultAdult Ring-billed Gull flying in a snow storm – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 1250, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I liked this image because of the color in the background, the pose of the Ring-billed Gull and of course all the falling snow.<\/p>\n

The light wasn’t great when I photographed these Ring-billed Gulls flying in a December snow storm but I had a great time with the gulls and the rest of the birds. It was much better than staying home.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Ring-billed Gull photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The light wasn’t great when I photographed these Ring-billed Gulls flying in a December snow storm but I had a great time with the gulls and the rest of the birds. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":151639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,410,709,26],"tags":[4284,2544,4052,4122,3539,521,4264,1984,4468,4693,4050,4509,8018,373],"class_list":["post-49939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-ring-billed-gulls","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-chase","tag-crayfish","tag-flight","tag-flying","tag-gull","tag-gulls","tag-larus-delawarensis","tag-pond","tag-ring-billed-gull","tag-skirmish","tag-snow","tag-snow-storm","tag-urban","tag-winter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t