prey – Page 19 – Feathered Photography

Northern Harrier Defending Its Meal

Long ago I posted some images of Northern Harriers fighting over this Mallard but I have other shots of the fracas that I’ve never posted so I thought I’d share some of them today. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc For the moment this bird has sole control over the duck but it knows the situation to be tenuous at best. The wings-out pose and fierce look are fair warning to the other harriers in the vicinity (and there are lots of them) that any attempt to share in the feast will be met with resistance. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These birds have been starving because of a brutally cold and snowy winter so this harrier begins a frenzy of feeding in an attempt to swallow as much food as possible before other birds move in. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc And it doesn’t take long before all hell breaks loose. At this point I often wasn’t getting enough depth of field for multiple birds so decided to risk f/10 and a slower shutter speed for the rest of the session. 1/800, f/10, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I was lacking in both shutter speed and depth of field for this shot and I’m not happy with the shadow on the face but liked the talons on the back. 1/800, f/10, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc For a few moments both birds tolerated each other on the duck but that didn’t last long… …

Just A Shot That I Like… #26 – Rough-legged Hawk In Flight With Prey

I’ve been lucky in the past to get some nice shots of Short-eared Owls in flight carrying prey but my luck with hawks in the same situation has been abysmal. Whenever the opportunity does present itself it’s usually when the hawk has taken off away from me so all I get is another butt shot with the head and eye hidden. 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These birds typically want to take off into the wind and on this day the wind direction was just right so that the hawk didn’t fly away from me as it lifted off. So I got good light, an acceptable wing position and even a nice look at the vole with its eye visible. Ron

The Western Kingbird and the Beetle

This will be another behavioral post – yes I am fascinated by interesting behaviors, perhaps overly so… I found this Western Kingbird hunting from a barbed wire perch which is quite typical for the species. It was so focused on its prey that it let me get quite close so I was able to get better detail of the feeding behavior than I normally do. 1/500, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The kingbird has spotted prey on the ground 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc so it flew down to retrieve it. In this case it happened to be a beetle. You can see it clinging upside down to the darker diagonal twig just in front of the bird. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Here’s a highly cropped version of the previous image to show the beetle better. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The bird grabbed the beetle but as you can see it had reached “through” the twig to get it 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc so it got more than it bargained for. The end of the twig broke off and wedged between the beetles abdomen and the upper mandible. 1/1000, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc So it flew back to its wire perch and tried to figure out what to do about the dilemma. It actually spent about 15 seconds just sitting there and staring at what was in its…

A Few Recent Loggerhead Shrikes

There’s always a few Loggerhead Shrikes that winter-over on Antelope Island and I find them to be fascinating subjects. Their approachability is very unpredictable but occasionally they’ll allow me to get close, especially when it’s very cold in the mornings or if they’re about to hack up a pellet. These are images I was able to get in the last few weeks. ***Note: The last image in this post is graphic. If your sensibilities might be offended by such a photo please stop scrolling before you get to the last (6th) image. 1/3200, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This bird was practicing its springtime melodic repertoire a few weeks early (image taken on 2/5/12). It was a relatively warm, sunny morning and it was singing its little heart out (if you can call shrike calls “singing”). 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc With their black masks these shrikes always remind me of little bandits and they have an attitude to go along with that perception. They get their name from their unusually large head (loggerhead means “block head”). 1/8000, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I like the soft, even light and the setting in this image even though the twigs in front of the bird may not be ideal for some. 1/640, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I’m including this shot just for fun. I liked the fluffy, relaxed pose to go along with the yawn. 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500…

Short-eared Owl Delivering Food To The Nest

In previous posts (here, here and here) about these Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge I’ve shown and described snippets of the fascinating behaviors I observed when this male would deliver voles to the female and two youngsters at the nest. But it struck me that I’ve never put the whole process together in sequence so the behaviors could be fully appreciated so that’s what I’ll attempt to do here. Most of the images will be different from those in the previous posts. 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The male was a tireless and highly skilled hunter and I never saw him with any prey other than voles. When successful he would always return to the vicinity of the nest and land momentarily on one of two favorite perches – the dark sagebrush at lower right in the above photo or a metal post a few feet from the sagebrush. Here he’s coming in for a landing on the sagebrush with vole in talons and glances up at me to make sure all is safe. I really like the intense direct eye contact in the shot. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Now he’s focused on the sagebrush in order to make a successful landing. 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This time he stayed perched for less than five seconds and didn’t even pull his wings in against his body – he just kept them out or up while he seemed to contemplate his next…

Just A Shot That I Like… #17 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With A Vole In Its Beak

This is another image from my time with the Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. This male was kept very busy hunting voles and feeding his mate and youngsters at the nest. Typically I would see him hunting far off, dive for a vole, and if he was successful he’d occasionally eat the vole himself but most often he would return with it to a favorite perch in the vicinity of the nest – and without exception he would always carry the vole in his talons before he got to the perch (and always his left talon, but I covered that topic in another post). 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However, just before (or just after) he took off from the perch to deliver the meal to his family he would always transfer the vole from his talons to his beak. I have a theory as to why he did so. The nest was on the ground at the base of a sagebrush. Whenever the male landed at the entrance to the nest with the vole the female would rush out and very aggressively grab the vole. And I DO mean aggressively! If I’d been him I’d have been afraid to get that close to her with food. So the male would approach the nest very gingerly with the vole in his beak and drop it in front of him and quickly retreat as she rushed out. I suspect it was easier for him to avoid a confrontation with her if he could quickly drop…

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…

Kiting Rough-legged Hawk

Kiting is the ability of some birds to maintain a stable position in the air by using air currents rather than by the flapping of wings or hovering. Last week I had a wonderful opportunity with this young Rough-legged Hawk while it was kiting in the stiff wind rising up from the Antelope Island causeway. The light was good and the bird was cooperative and let me get close – what more could a bird photographer wish for? 1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc It was amazing to see how still in the air this bird could be – often maintaining the same relative position to the ground without significant wing movement for long periods. I swear that if I had been using a tripod I could have focused on the bird, walked away for 10 seconds or so and then returned and snapped the shutter with the hawk still in the frame and without having had to look through the viewfinder or refocus. A bit of a stretch perhaps, but not by a lot. 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Much of the time the hawk was hunting – looking down into the grasses for voles. That head position doesn’t provide the eye contact that is photographically desirable but I wanted to include a shot that illustrated hunting posture. 1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The hawk caught several voles while I was photographing it. In this instance the bird immediately took to the air with the very young vole… …

Just A Shot That I Like… #10 – Prairie Falcon In Flight, With Duck Kill

This morning was cold and very windy out on Antelope Island and most of the birds seemed to have taken refuge from the freezing gale so as we left the island I figured it would be one of those relatively rare days when I had been photographically “skunked”. But as is so often the case, the island had a pleasant last-minute surprise in store for me. 1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This Prairie Falcon had apparently killed a duck (which I believe to be a Northern Shoveler) and was trying to defend it from two marauding ravens so the falcon decided to haul the shoveler off to a more private and secluded dining area. That turned out to be an unfortunate decision as very soon after this photo was taken a Bald Eagle flew in and forced the falcon to drop the duck. The eagle flew down to the ice, retrieved the duck and nonchalantly flew off with it. The wing and back of the duck are covered with snow/ice crystals. The out of focus lighter “blobs” in the lower background are whitecaps on the Great Salt Lake. This falcon is the same bird I photographed a little over a month ago and posted here. I know that to be the case because the same wing covert is askew in both birds (though it can’t be seen in this image). I’ve now been able to photograph this falcon on four different occasions in the last few weeks. What a treat! Ron

Sometimes the Prey Bites Back

I hope you’ll bear with me but this post will be more about behavior than image quality as I just didn’t have a good light angle for this little drama. As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, one of my primary goals is to document interesting behaviors and at times that will take priority over the quality of the images. When Rough-legged Hawks dive on prey it can be fairly dramatic. Typically they hover high up over the potential prey for a few moments, then dive fast and at a fairly steep angle. Occasionally they seem to hit the ground so hard that it rattles my teeth, almost making me expect them to bounce on impact. 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I watched this hawk hover, then dive. I think you can see from the wing position that this bird was still traveling at a good clip and at a fairly steep angle when it was only a couple of feet from the ground. The prey was on a hill above me and buried in this vegetation so I didn’t see the impact. 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Often these attempts at prey are unsuccessful but this time the hawk caught a vole (along with a talon-full of debris). The bird came out of the grasses directly toward me but then turned to its left to give me a side view. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This little vole had a bucket-full of attitude and didn’t want to go down…

Just A Shot That I Like… #6 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With Prey

Sometimes conditions are marginal at best for avian photography and that often seems to be the case for me when I’m presented with an otherwise wonderful opportunity. Then the decision must be made – go ahead and shoot anyway, knowing it’s likely that I won’t get any keepers or just pack it in and watch and enjoy the birds? 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, noise reduction to background Such was the case with this Short-eared Owl at Montana’s rugged and remote Centennial Valley. It was an overcast day and there generally wasn’t enough light for photographing birds in flight but this male was regularly delivering voles to his family and would occasionally fly right by me as he did so. I could have removed my teleconverter to get a little more shutter speed but then the owl would be quite small in the frame so I just decided to fire away and hope for the best. Even at ISO 800 (the absolute limit for my 7D without getting too much noise) I was often getting shutter speeds of 1/500 or slower at f/5.6 – just not fast enough to get birds in flight sharp. I got lucky with this shot. As the owl was coming in, the clouds behind me opened up slightly to allow a little more light on the bird and a shutter speed of 1/640 – just enough to get good sharpness on a relatively large and slow flying bird if your focus is well locked on to the subject. The still shaded Centennial Mountains provided…

Short-eared Owls Defending Their Nest Against Predators

Recent reports from others indicate that bird activity on Antelope Island is slowing down now and our experience out there recently would agree with that assessment so yesterday when Mia and I were trying to decide where to go shooting birds we were a little hesitant about another trip to the island. But even with things slowing down we almost never fail to find something interesting to photograph and yesterday was certainly no exception! Canon 7D, 1/800, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV 0, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Soon after arriving on the island we noticed a pair of Short-eared Owls, obviously mated based on their behavior. Canon 7D, 1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV 0, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This owl was carrying a vole and we immediately suspected that the pair had a nest in the vicinity, which turned out to be true. It was quite a distance from the road and buried in vegetation but we could tell its location by watching this owl deliver food to the nest site – either to the mate or to both the mate and chicks. We watched and photographed the birds for a while but when things slowed down we went further down the island. Canon 7D, 1/1600, f/8, ISO 640, EV + .67, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc On our return to the area of the nest we immediately saw a quickly developing drama. A young coyote had apparently just crossed the road and was approaching the nest area and the owls were in…

American Kestrels – What They’ll Eat and What They Won’t.

I’ve always found it fascinating to watch these little falcons eat. A gruesome experience to be sure but so much more interesting than observing a raptor such as an owl who simply swallows its prey whole. And if you watch carefully there’s a whole lot more going on during the process than first meets the eye. Kestrels can be pretty picky eaters. I’ve documented in another post on this blog that they often refuse to eat the intestinal tract of their prey and deliberately discard it. Kestrels, like other raptors, eject pellets of indigestible materials like fur, feathers, chitin and bone. All food that is swallowed first goes to the crop. From there the usable food continues on to the stomach but the indigestibles stay in the crop, are formed into a pellet and regurgitated roughly 23 hours (in the case of kestrels) after the meal was consumed. Canon 7D, 1/800, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500mm f/4, 1.4 tc The kestrels I’ve watched eating voles and mice typically eat the brain, decapitate the rodent, then go for the soft internal protein rich muscles and other organs (discarding the intestines). Since kestrels tear their prey into bite-sized pieces they can pick and choose what they actually swallow. Canon 7D, 1/400, f/8, ISO 640, 500mm f/4, 1.4 tc Pellet expulsion can be difficult and traumatic as I’ve documented elsewhere on this blog with Northern Harriers and I suspect that’s one of the reasons that kestrels try to avoid swallowing as much fur as possible. When opening up the body cavity they often get a beak-full of…

A Loggerhead Shrike, a Spider and Spit

A few days ago Mia and I found this Loggerhead Shrike sitting prettily on a dried sunflower on Antelope Island. The bird was using the sunflower as a hunting perch. 1/1600, f/8, ISO 500 I’ve always been amazed by the incredible eyesight of many bird species. This shrike somehow spotted a spider crawling through the thick grass about 20 feet away from where it was perched and immediately flew down to grab it. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 It was a relatively small spider and I have no idea how the shrike was able to see it in all the dense grass. Even though the background is busy here I still liked the shot for the interesting look at both the spider and the tongue of the shrike. It’s my presumption from looking at this photo that the saliva of the shrike is viscous and sticky, enabling the prey to stay attached to the tongue during the very fast process of pulling the spider to the back of the throat with the tongue. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 A heavily cropped, close-up view of the same image provides a clue. You can see that there’s a sheet of saliva stretched between the bottom of the tongue and the floor of the lower mandible and it does appear to be quite viscous. I had no idea that it would be so “juicy” in there. Nothing earth-shattering here, just some avian trivia in a photo that I found interesting (yes, my interests can be…

Rough-legged Hawk – Defensive Posture

Most birds are defensive of their territories and space and raptors are certainly no exception. Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers both prey heavily on voles (mice-like rodents) so when a new bird of prey comes in to the established hunting territory of another there are often conflicts, with the established bird attempting to drive off the interloper to avoid competition for food resources. Rough-legged Hawk As I was photographing this Rough-legged hawk sitting peacefully in a tree I noted a definite change in its demeanor so I looked around and spotted a Northern Harrier speeding toward the hawk from my right. I anticipated that the harrier would “buzz” the roughie and since I was much too close to get both birds in the frame when it happened I decided to concentrate on the reaction of the hawk as the interaction occurred. I never did get the harrier in the frame in any of the shots. In the image above, the roughie hasn’t yet seen the harrier coming in (nor have I). The incoming Northern Harrier has been spotted When I noticed this posture change in the roughie I knew something was up, so I looked in the direction the bird was focused on and saw the harrier coming in fast. Beginning to react Here the hawk is beginning to react to the swift and aggressive approach of the harrier by beginning to fluff up. Defensive posture This shot was taken when the harrier, traveling very fast, was closest to the hawk – roughly three…

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