An Incredible Experience With A Prairie Falcon And A Hapless Duck

This morning on Antelope Island was a photographic bust – heavy snow coming down most of the time and no light to speak of.  So finally, after several hours of hoping the clouds would clear, we put our tails between our legs and headed for home.  Talk about perfect timing! We’d traversed about half the causeway when the clouds parted, light blossomed and a serendipitous adult Prairie Falcon appeared, hunting for ducks.   The falcon ambushed this male Northern Shoveler just as I was getting my pickup in position, so I missed that shot but this one was taken within a second or two of the strike.  The duck is bleeding heavily.     It struggled for a minute or so, and then died in the water.     After the attack, the falcon would perch along the causeway for a short period, then take off and fly over the duck.  This was done repeatedly.   With my 500mm plus tc I could never get both the duck and the falcon in the image – this is as close as I came.      1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Here, the falcon is perched to watch the duck out on the water.      1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in I had a difficult time locking focus on the falcon as it buzzed the duck because the textured water background was so close to the bird.  I kept getting sharp shots of…

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