Category: Northern Harriers

Northern Harrier Male in Flight

Just a single image of a male Northern Harrier in flight but this shot means a lot to me.    Canon 7D, 1/6400, f/5.6, ISO 640, EV – 0.o, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I have many nice harrier images taken during winter around the marshes of the Great Salt Lake but for me this species has been a nemesis bird during spring and summer.  Most of our harriers migrate north in early spring and those that stick around become very difficult to approach.  For three summers now I’ve been trying mightily to get a decent flight shot of a harrier to no avail.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done some crazy driving (I’m usually shooting from my truck) trying to intersect the flight path of one of these birds only to have it veer off before it got close.  As Mia often says – these birds like to “yank my chains”.   Then, about three weeks ago, this male apparently forgot to “yank” and flew relatively close to me.  I rattled off a burst and got this one image that I like.  My techs for the image weren’t ideal but it still worked out and I’m delighted.  I guess it doesn’t take much to satisfy this  bird photographer sometimes… This post will be a bit of an experiment.  I’ll be out of town for a couple of days so I’m preparing the post now and will test the delayed posting feature of WordPress.  Hope it works. Ron      

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Northern Harrier with Nesting Material

 I’ve been photographing Northern Harriers in northern Utah for five years now and until earlier this week I’d only seen this species carrying nesting material once before and wasn’t able to photograph it.   Harriers are very common here during winter but most of them head north for the breeding season and those that stay usually build their nests in inaccessible areas of the marsh, so it’s rare for me to see any nesting activities.      Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 Two days ago Mia and I were photographing birds at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.  We were about to call it a day because it was late in the morning and light was no longer optimal when we spotted this harrier flying at a distance.  We figured it would veer off before it got close, as they always seem to do out there, but this one kept coming toward us.  We were watching it through our lenses and soon noticed that it had nesting material in its beak.    Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 By chance we happened to be at a place on the dirt road that was within 100′ or so of the  nest of this bird.  It decided to ignore us and come in to complete its delivery.     Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 The nest is apparently in this bed of last year’s dead Phragmites.  The dark spots you see in the last three images of this…

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Fish Eating Northern Harriers

 As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the winter of 2008 was a particularly brutal one in northern Utah.  During January and February there was much more snow than usual and it was bitterly cold.  During most winters our Northern Harriers rely primarily on voles as a food supply but in 2008 with the voles under the deep crusty snow our harriers were desperate for food.  Birds of North America Online provides extensive information on the dietary habits of harriers.  It lists small to medium-sized mammals (primarily rodents), birds, reptiles and frogs as harrier food sources, stating further that the diet of harriers during winter in their northern range (which includes northern Utah) consists of voles “almost exclusively”.  I can find no mention of harriers eating fish, ever! Each year in early February some of our wetlands managers treat some of our ponds with rotenone (a chemical that prevents oxygen from being absorbed across fish gill membranes) in an effort to control the invasive and damaging carp that do so much damage to the emergent vegetation which is so vital for waterfowl.  So, in 2008 for a few weeks, our desperate and starving harriers began to eat fish!  In the three winters since then I have never seen harriers eating fish even though the dead carp are always plentiful after the rotenone kill.    1/1250, 1/1000, ISO 500 Many of the carp are brought to the shores or ice surface by Bald Eagles which makes them available to the harriers who generally cannot retrieve them from the water.      1/1250, f/8, ISO…

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Northern Harrier Struggling to Expel a Pellet

  Except for owls, all raptors have a crop for excess food storage.  The parts of the prey that are indigestible are formed into a pellet in the gizzard and then regurgitated out of the mouth.  These pellets contain hair, feathers, exoskeletons and sometimes (in the case of owls especially) the bones of their prey.  I’ve noticed with many raptor species that expelling a pellet can be a difficult process, bordering on traumatic.  Such was the case with this juvenile male Northern Harrier. I was watching this bird through my lens but not planning on getting any quality photos because the bird was strongly side-lit.   But when he began trying to expel a pellet I couldn’t resist clicking away.  Because of the side-lighting and relatively soft focus the images are not of high quality but I thought the behavior was interesting enough for a blog post anyway.  All of the photos in this series are posted in the order that they were taken.    The beginning of the struggle to expel the pellet    Here the harrier is shaking his head from side to side to try to dislodge the pellet   But with the effort he begins to lose his balance on the perch    And almost falls  over backward    He begins to recover    And then falls forward    Begins to recover again    Still recovering    Recovered, but still with the pellet stuck in his mouth    And finally the pellet has been expelled.  As luck would have it my buffer had filled up and I missed…

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Northern Harriers Battle over a Mallard

Occasionally we have brutally cold winters here in northern Utah.  It’s my opinion that unusually cold temperatures when combined with thick crusted snow gives harriers little access to their staple food around here – voles.  Survival then becomes tenuous for the harriers and they’re forced to move on to other food sources like small birds, dead carp and waterfowl.   When a large meal like a carp or duck is available many harriers often fight over the food item and they do so with ferocity.   During less stressful times of the year I often see these birds skirmish but then it almost seems like a playful interlude that they do simply for “fun”.   Not so when it’s very cold and food is scarce – then it’s deadly serious and incredibly interesting to observe and photograph. First, a disclaimer.  Some of the photos I’ll present here would wither under the scrutiny of critique because of cut off or clipped wings, missing eyes or heads, lack of catch lights and difficult and rapidly changing lighting conditions.  My intent here is to show the behavior with the best images I have but some of them do have obvious flaws.  The calm before the storm I didn’t see harriers make this Mallard kill but it was still fresh when I came across this bird on the duck.  At first I though I’d simply be photographing the harrier calmly enjoying its meal but I was very mistaken.   Thinking about challenging the larger bird for the meal It didn’t take long for other birds to challenge her for the Mallard.  Some were timid…

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Northern Harrier Males – “Grey Ghosts”

The degree of sexual dimorphism (the condition in which males and females of a species are morphologically different) in Northern harriers is exceptional among birds of prey.  Many raptors are sexually dimorphic in size (see my “Great Horned Owls on the Farm” post) but Northern Harrier males and females are distinctly different in both size and color.    Adult female Northern Harrier This bird is a juvenile female, identified by the mostly solid rufous chest and dark eye.  The adult female would look much the same but with a streaked breast and a lighter colored eye.   By weight, females are about 50% heavier than males.  Both sexes have the distinctive white rump patch that is so difficult to photograph without blowing the whites.       Adult male Northern Harrier Adult males are gray above, much lighter below and have black wing tips.   And their bright yellow eyes are quite distinctive.       Adult male hunting Juvenile birds of both sexes resemble the female in plumage color so relatively few adult males are seen and photographed.  For this reason mature males have long been referred to as “Grey Ghosts”.       Perched adult male Whether perched or in flight many believe the adult male harrier to be one of the most beautiful raptors.    Adult male flying past Phragmites  Eye color in the males can vary from orange-yellow to lemon yellow.  At times they’re so bright that some folks after seeing my images have thought that I had increased their saturation for effect during image processing.  I hadn’t and I don’t.    …

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The Challenges of Photographing Birds in Flight in Low Light

Photographing birds in flight in relatively low light (dusk, dawn, cloudy conditions etc) isn’t easy.  In addition to the expected challenge of locking focus onto a fast and often erratically moving target, in low light you have the problem of getting enough shutter speed to get a moving subject sharp.   A potential solution to the problem is “opening up” – increasing the size of the aperture, which is the same as reducing the f-number – say as in changing your setting from f/7.1 to f/5.6.   This lets more light into the camera in the same amount of time, allowing for an increase in shutter speed to freeze the motion of the bird.  Opening up however has another effect – reducing depth of field, so less of your subject is likely to be tack sharp.  Another potential solution is to increase ISO.  Increasing ISO in digital cameras has the effect of seeming to increase the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor to light so that faster shutter speeds can be used but the downside to increasing ISO is that it can increase digital noise in the image. Sometimes in bird photography fantastic opportunities with birds in flight present themselves in less than ideal light.  Your best chance at an acceptable image under those conditions is to understand the interplay between your camera settings – how changing aperture affects shutter speed and depth of field and how changing ISO affects shutter speed and the production of digital noise.      Male Northern Harrier, 1/1250 @ f/11, ISO 800 It’s not often I get a…

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The Frustrations of Unnatural Perches

Most bird photographers prefer their subjects to be on natural perches.  We are, after all, nature photographers.  The definition of just what is “natural” becomes a slippery slope for sure but for my purposes I’ll define a natural perch by exclusion – it does not include buildings, telephone poles and wires, chunks of concrete, signs, or most anything else that is obviously man-made. Now for my exceptions.  Some objects that are man-made and have a “rustic” quality are often acceptable.  Weathered fence posts, old barns and rusty barbed wire would be examples.  One of the major frustrations of bird photographers is to be able to finally get close to a beautiful subject in good light but the bird has chosen an ugly or inappropriate (for us) man-made perch.  It is typically very difficult to approach many bird species close enough to get excellent detailed photos, even with big expensive lenses.  So it can be aggravating in the extreme to finally get close enough but the bird has chosen an unappealing perch.  Some folks choose to largely avoid this problem by shooting at “setups” where the bird has been unnaturally lured into an artificial situation by provided food with attractive perches arranged close by.  To many of us this is not nature photography but more like studio or zoo photography.  Good bird photography ain’t easy.  If it were it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying when I do finally get the shot I’m after – even though the pursuit has often been frustrating.  Below are some of the situations where I’ve been frustrated by these unattractive, unnatural perches.        Most bird photographers know…

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Northern Harriers Fight to Survive Harsh Winters

  Typically life is good for the hundreds of Northern Harriers who spend fall and winter in the marshes and prairies surrounding the Great Salt Lake after spending breeding season up north.  Here their diet consists almost exclusively of microtine voles (small rodents resembling mice).  These voles are incredibly abundant and relatively easy prey.  It’s quite unusual to see a harrier even attempt to catch a songbird or anything else for that matter.    Harrier hunting voles near the Great Salt Lake   However the easy life takes a major turn for the worse during unusually harsh winters with intense cold and deep snow packs.  During these times the voles spend most of their time underground eating roots and dried vegetation which means the primary source of food for harriers is suddenly unavailable just when they most need nourishment for warmth.  And since most songbirds (their fall-back food source) have either migrated south or have already succumbed to the many American Kestrels in the region, simple survival for the harriers is suddenly very precarious.  Now, out of desperation,  harriers begin to go for larger prey – ducks and coots for example.     Harrier on a duck kill frozen into the ice They aren’t able to take these prey often and when they do they can’t eat them quickly like they can a vole.  The result is intense aggression – fighting fiercely over food.  Typically I see very little true aggression(other than territorial squabbles) between harriers but all that changes when food becomes scarce.  A relatively large prey item will provide multiple…

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