Birds In A Christmas Morning Snowstorm

It’s been my Christmas tradition for years to spend part of the morning photographing birds. I usually have the place (wherever it might be) mostly to myself and personally I find communing with nature on Christmas morning to be quite appropriate and fulfilling. And yesterday’s snowstorm was pure delight.

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Hunting Northern Harrier Turning Away From Me In Flight

I like to get the interesting ventral plumage patterns of Northern Harriers in my images whenever I can. They tend to fly low when hunting so I don’t often get a good look at the underside of both tail and wings in the same shot. But this bird cooperated for an instant and I happened to fire my shutter at just the right moment.

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Red-tailed Hawk Just Prior To Reaching Prey

This first photo isn’t a classic buteo flight shot but I believe it’s fairly unique for a non-baited image. I’ve occasionally been able to capture raptors as they’re about to land on a predictable perch but this is the first and only time I’ve been able to get a shot I like pretty well of a raptor as it’s about to (or attempt to) “land” on prey it’s seen from a far-away perch.

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Rough-legged Hawk At Farmington Bay

I photographed my first Rough-legged Hawk of the season four days ago. The last time I’d photographed them prior to that had been on January 27, 2014 so it had been 285 days in-between opportunities with this species that spends much of the year in the high arctic. Hopefully that gives me an excuse to post images of roughies twice within just a few days.

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