Tag: hunt

Indecisive Coyote With A Duck

Coyotes sometimes prowl the causeway to Antelope Island early in the morning.  While they’ll certainly take the occasional vole they may come across, voles aren’t really their intended quarry.  There are far more voles on the island than there are along the causeway.  Coyotes come onto the causeway to scavenge.    1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, not baited During winter there are many ducks along the causeway and occasionally one of them dies – an easy meal for a coyote.  But most often these coyotes are after falcon leftovers.  Peregrine Falcons and Prairie falcons often hunt the causeway and most ducks are too large for either species to completely consume, so there’s nearly always leftovers. Three days ago I found this coyote with a duck.  The bird appeared to be frozen so I suspect it was carrion.  Here, the coyote couldn’t decide which way to go with its meal – left or right, because the causeway is narrow and the animal is confined by the lake in the back and the road in front, which gave me an indecisive posture that I like (despite the side light). Ron

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Road-killed Barn Owls

Talk about coincidence! Last night, as I was working up some images of Barn Owls for a blog post on the species, I received the following UBIRD email (used here by permission) from my good friend, enthusiastic birder and budding bird photographer, Shyloh Robinson.  Shyloh lives very close to Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area (FBWMA) and this time of year he’s almost always at the refuge in the evenings looking for birds – particularly owls.   “:(   when a grown man uses an emoticon,  you KNOW he’s serious! Each night this week, I’ve visited my home at FBWMA to look at the owls. I went a bit early tonight to make sure I saw some hawks too. They were posted up in the usual spots. I drove straight to the 4way to wait for any short-eared. (That’s the good spot for them.) Sadly, I saw no owls… Until I left and was on Glovers Lane.  Another Barn Owl was dead in the road, and being collected. I got a lump in my throat. I’m quickly learning why moving vehicles are a Barn Owl’s worst enemy. These alba’s have meant a lot to me lately and I’m saddened to see them ghosted. Now what? Shyloh”   Knowing Shyloh as well as I do, I knew he was devastated.  He simply adores “his” owls – an emotion that I share because I’ve spent many, many hours at FBWMA looking for, and photographing, those Barn Owls.  They are a special species, in so many ways. Shyloh’s UBIRD post inspired me to change the focus of my Barn…

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Antelope Island – A Smorgasbord For Coyotes

A lot of folks don’t like coyotes but I’m in a different camp.  I have great admiration for their adaptability, hunting skills, intelligence and communication abilities.  Over the past few years I’ve had many opportunities to observe their behaviors on Antelope Island which has made me an even bigger fan of this amazing canid.  To watch a coyote hunt is a fascinating experience. This post is meant as a documentation of the opportunistic feeding tendencies of the species rather than as a showcase for technically perfect photos.   Getting clear shots of any mammal on the ground (as opposed to perched or flying birds) is a rarity because of all of the grasses, sunflowers, sagebrush, rabbitbrush and moth mullein the photographer has to shoot through on the island.   So there’s lots of “stuff” in front of the coyote in some of these shots and a couple of them are sizeable crops but I think their prey tendencies are documented reasonably well by the images.    1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Coyotes eat a lot of voles – prodigious numbers of them in fact.  I’ve seen a single animal catch and consume 4-5 voles in the same area within just a few minutes and I’ve seen it several times.      1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But they’ll also take birds when they can catch them.  This coyote was returning from the lake shoreline with an unusual prize – some kind of waterfowl.  From the position of the leg attachment at the back of the body I’d guess…

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Northern Harrier Hunting a Vole

Over the last five years I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time photographing, watching and studying hunting Northern Harriers.  When they pounce on their prey the action is usually so far away (or buried in the vegetation) that I don’t get a good look at what’s actually happening.   But all that changed with this adult female who was so intent on capturing a vole buried deep in the matted, dried vegetation that she virtually ignored me.  What fun to watch!  Unlike most other hawks, harriers very often use auditory cues (sound) to locate prey.  In fact they have a facial “ruff” or disc much like owls do and its purpose is the same – to funnel sounds to the ears.  The feathers that form the disc can be raised in response to noise, essentially enlarging the disc and improving hearing.      1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Harriers often hunt along predictable “pathways” and this one had made several passes by me earlier.  However this time she attempted to pounced on something right in front of me – almost certainly it was a vole since they are very nearly the exclusive diet of wintering harriers.      1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc She missed the vole but from her demeanor she could obviously hear it under the mat of vegetation and she became quite agitated in her attempts to get at it.       1/1600, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc She repeatedly rose into the air a couple of feet and pounced back down on the same spot with her…

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