Kiting Male Northern Harrier

On this morning at Farmington Bay we weren’t having very much luck with birds so Mia suggested that we hang out next to a high dike where the south wind was creating an updraft that we’d seen a male Northern Harrier kiting in earlier.  Despite the less than perfect light angle it turned out to be another one of Mia’s good ideas because it wasn’t long before the harrier returned to play in the updrafts and hunt the dike edges.

 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

Two things made this an especially interesting situation – the fact that the harrier was kiting (giving us more time with the bird) and the variety of backgrounds we got when the harrier would move just a few feet in the air.  It was a partly cloudy day and the bird was usually hanging just above the snow-covered Wasatch Range to the east so at times I got thin white clouds in the background, or a mix of clouds and blue sky, or both sky and mountains or the mountains alone.   Throw into that mix the fact that the light was constantly changing because of the clouds and you’ll understand the exposure difficulties that morning.

 

 

 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

 Because of the challenging light angle much of the harrier was often backlit but the head turn in this shot giving light on the head and eye made this image work for me.

 

 

1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4

 Here the light was playing on the puffy clouds for an interesting background effect.

 

 

 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4

 Here the bird is just above the mountains with mostly blue sky behind him.

 

 

 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4

A couple of times he turned his head sharply to check us out.

 

 

 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4

And one time only he banked steeply enough to put good light on his ventral surfaces.

It was a fun morning with a beautiful and playful male harrier.

Ron