Yesterday my morning on Antelope Island started with the saddest. I saw an injured duck on the shore of the Great Salt Lake and two gulls tearing its feathers out.
The duck was covered in blood and could not defend itself. Survival is often brutal in the wild.
I continued my way further in a terrible mood until I saw two small sparrows on one of the rocks.
The sparrows turned out to be an adult White-crowned Sparrow, it has very bold white and black stripes on the head and an immature White-crowned Sparrow. Immatures have rusty brown stripes on their gray head.
Photographing these little sparrows was quite difficult. I stayed in the car, afraid of scaring them off, and I had to focus on them almost blindly because the rocks were very high.
Despite the fact that the photographs did not turn out the way I would have liked, I am still happy that I was lucky enough to see an adult and immature White-crowned sparrows together. This doesn't happen very often.
Generally, life is good.
