Coyote Chasing Magpie

I suppose this could have landed in Wildlife or Avian. My wildlife highlight of the year so far occurred during my January Yellowstone tour, when we stopped to photograph a coyote feasting on a carcass. It ended up being a unique situation due to the particular prey involved (more on that in a future post), but the whole reason I initially stopped was because a Black-billed Magpie was hanging around hoping to pick up some scraps.

Magpies are lovely birds, but fairly shy, so I figured this might be a good opportunity for our group to document these two species together… a little magpie action can spruce up any photo, as far as I’m concerned. A bonus, however, was seeing how much the coyote did not want to share its prize. As a result, we witnessed a number of moments when the canid took off after the bird to keep it at a distance.

This is a bit of a crop, but with the R5 there were enough pixels left to make it work.

Canon R5
Canon 600mm
ISO 800
1/1600th
f/8
+1 1/3 exp. comp.

Max

@maxwaughphoto
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Oh my, this is super! What a great story.

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Winter cold does increase the appetite. Wonderful shot–Unfortunately I cannot open the image for a larger display. I will offer an in depth critique when the large version becomes available…Jim

Thank you @Keith_Bauer Bauer for fixing the large view and @Max_Waugh for providing the link. The image is very crisp and detailed. You nailed the lights and darks and froze the action too. The point of view makes this very unique because most published images of this type of encounter are taken from frontal or lateral views of the predator. I like this as presented and I am glad that you did not remove the scraps of carcass which adds to the story. Awesome capture…Jim

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Unfortunately I cannot open the image for a larger display.

I can’t either, oddly. Here’s the link to the 1024px tall version (the largest I typically share online) on my site if you’d like another look, Jim: https://bit.ly/2PMBxSO

I fixed the issue with this image not showing the larger version.

2 Likes

Great interaction and wonderful frame !
I really like the positioning of both the subjects.

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Max, the graphic/high key nature of this interaction stands out very well. The interaction just adds to the story. I do wonder if a bit of burning on the bird’s darker feather would strengthen the blue. The details in the coyote’s fur look great. The bit of flying snow at it’s feet are a good extra. Oh yeah, I had the “no enlargement” problem on a posted image a while back. Deleting the image description in the text and reposting via Add Image fixed that.