Strange Encounter with a Northern Harrier and a Junco

For me, life just doesn’t get much better than when I’m watching interesting or unusual bird behaviors up close. 

I was photographing this male Northern Harrier out my pickup window while it was perched on the clump of snow-bent vegetation you see in the image below when I heard a soft scratching sound coming from the front of my truck.  I quickly glanced to my right and noticed that a Dark-eyed Junco had landed square in the middle of the hood of the truck.  I thought that was unusual of course but I was more interested in the harrier so I quickly turned back to watching him through my viewfinder and it immediately became apparent that the harrier was now fixated on that junco.   

   

 1/3200, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

 I’ve spent hundreds of hours watching and photographing harriers and it’s virtually unheard of for one to take off in my direction when I’m this close to the bird.  Usually the direction of take off is away from me or if I’m lucky it might be either to my left or right.  But this one had apparently decided that it wanted junco for lunch and when it launched it immediately turned slightly and headed straight toward the junco on my truck hood.

 

 

1/3200, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

If you look carefully at the harriers eyes in all four shots you’ll notice that he isn’t really focused on me – instead he’s looking slightly to my right, directly at the junco on the hood of the truck.  That fact becomes more apparent as the harrier gets closer, to me and the junco.

 

 

1/3200, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

Here he is completing his slight turn to his left (notice the tail angle) and heading directly toward the junco.

 

 

 1/3200, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

This was the last sharp shot I got because by now he was flying fast and my angle was limited because of the truck window.  To be perfectly honest, with this busy background so close to the bird and with him heading almost straight for me I was pleasantly surprised to get any sharp shots at all – especially with the teleconverter attached.

Looking back, part of me wishes I’d taken a moment to get a shot through the windshield of the junco on my hood with my other camera but then knowing my luck I’d likely have missed the harrier’s take off.   

And if you’re at all curious about what happened after my last shot, the harrier made it more than half way to my truck and the junco before he apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor, changed his mind, veered off to his right and flew past my truck within a few feet of me, too close for my lens to focus and much too fast for my reflexes.  For a split second I thought he might join me in the truck…

An experience I’ll not soon forget.

Ron

 

Addendum:  In response to a question from “Elephant’s Child” in the comments on this post and for the benefit of others who may not be familiar with the Dark-eyed Junco I’ve added the photo below for clarification.  Juncos (there are many sub-species) are common North American birds sometimes referred to as “snowbirds” for their propensity for appearing at feeders during snow storms.   

 

Dark-eyed Junco (photo taken at my feeder)