{"id":70220,"date":"2020-05-24T05:42:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T11:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=70220"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:28:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:28:44","slug":"serviceberries-are-blooming-in-the-wasatch-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/05\/24\/serviceberries-are-blooming-in-the-wasatch-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Serviceberries Are Blooming In The Wasatch Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week the serviceberries were blooming in the Wasatch Mountains and I tried to get some decent images of them. I had gale force winds to contend with so of the almost two dozen photos I took only this one met my standards, just barely.<\/p>\n

\"BloomingBlooming Serviceberry – Nikon D500, f6.3, 1\/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the background colors swayed me into keeping this image. I would have liked more depth of field to get the flowers sharp from the front to the back but I needed a higher shutter speed because of the strong winds. I had to try to balance depth of field with speed.<\/p>\n

What got me so excited was seeing how many serviceberries there were blooming on the slopes of the mountains and how thick the blossoms were on each of the shrubs. The slopes on the east and west sides of the mountains were covered in blooming serviceberries.<\/p>\n

Last year wasn’t great for berry production because we had prolonged cold and extremely wet conditions during the time period many of the shrubs were in bloom which affected the flowers, pollination and reduced the amount of fruit that set on the serviceberries, hawthorns, chokecherries and other fruiting shrubs. Later in the season when there should have been copious amounts of fruit for birds to eat and fatten up on for migration it was slim pickings.<\/p>\n

I didn’t get to photograph many birds eating fruit at the serviceberries<\/span><\/a> or other shrubs at the end of last summer but far worse than that was that the birds didn’t have the fruits to eat in the volume they had in previous years. All birds need fuel for migration and those berries provide that for some of them.<\/p>\n

I am hoping that this year’s crop of berries will be abundant and that the cold snap we have had the past few days won’t seriously affect berry production.<\/p>\n

Everything is connected in nature. It would serve us all well to remember that.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my wildflower, shrub and tree photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What got me so excited was seeing how many serviceberries there were blooming on the slopes of the mountains and how thick the blossoms were on each of the shrubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4594,5346,5345,26,773],"tags":[9960,2666,6627,6098,9962,6518,5889,9961,7514,530,7289,6698,2667,6497],"class_list":["post-70220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morgan-county","category-shrubs","category-trees","category-utah","category-wasatch-mountains","tag-amelanchier","tag-amelanchier-alnifolia","tag-bloom","tag-blooming","tag-cold-snap","tag-flowering","tag-flowering-shrub","tag-fruit-production","tag-in-bloom","tag-migration","tag-serviceberries","tag-serviceberry","tag-western-serviceberry","tag-white-flowers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/serviceberry-in-bloom-mia-mcpherson-2938.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-igA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":58447,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2019\/06\/09\/flowering-serviceberries-more-blooming-bird-food\/","url_meta":{"origin":70220,"position":0},"title":"Flowering 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"Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"MacGillivray\u2019s Warbler perched in a blooming Serviceberry, Wasatch Mountains, Morgan County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/macgillivrays-warbler-serviceberry-mia-mcpherson-3030.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/macgillivrays-warbler-serviceberry-mia-mcpherson-3030.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/macgillivrays-warbler-serviceberry-mia-mcpherson-3030.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/macgillivrays-warbler-serviceberry-mia-mcpherson-3030.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 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