Beautiful warm light can make me overlook some shortcomings. Mostly.
1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in
At Bear River MBR early yesterday this immature Rough-legged Hawk posed for me on several perches. A little earlier while I was photographing an adult male roughie I was having trouble with heat waves in the cold morning air so those photos were soft but when I got this younger bird in my viewfinder that problem had cleared up. I’m not particularly fond of most unnatural perches but when I get beautiful warm morning light on a cooperative and handsome raptor like this one I can mostly overlook them.
When this photo was taken I was after takeoff and flight shots so I’d removed my teleconverter to give me more room in the frame. Those takeoff shots didn’t happen.
1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
For this photo I was using my tc so I was optically closer to the bird which allowed for a little more detail with him larger in the frame.
I photographed several roughies yesterday but one of them stood out for its approachability.
Roughies are a true arctic species that spend most of the year in tundra or taiga in arctic and subarctic Alaska and Canada. After spending so much time in true wilderness they tend to be unusually spooky and unapproachable when they arrive down here for the winter months. Even the young ones.
1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
But yesterday morning this bird was an exception. ‘He’ was on this sign right next to the relatively narrow auto tour loop road which meant I had to drive very close to him to proceed. When I did so the passenger side of my pickup was only about 10′ from him so I fully expected him to fly off. But amazingly he stuck! It almost seemed like if I’d been in the passenger seat I could have reached out and touched him as I drove by.
This shot was taken after I passed him and had better light (high clouds were passing over at the time). The photo amuses me because it appears as if he thinks he’s a traffic cop enforcing the directions on the sign.
Ron
Oh, and by the way. Do you remember the male American Kestrel I posted photos of yesterday as he was perched in a tree while stretching and trying to hack up a pellet?
1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
Yesterday morning he was once again in the same tree and on one of the two same perches. And yup, he was stretching again.
I love it when raptors are predictable, even when I don’t get any great shots.
Absolutely beautiful shots, love em all, wish we here could be so fortunate!!
Love the light on the Roughie. 😀 And the Kestrel has a “nyah nyah nyah” look it seems. Maybe he’s thinking, “I knew this was the perfect junky twig to ruin his shot.”
He probably did, Arwen. Which is exactly why he picked it…
“C’mon! Enter! I triple-bird-dare you!” 😂 Love the warm light and the fluffy Roughie in the first two shots. The bit of twiggery in front of the Kestrel makes me think of a fan dancer, which then removes any nits to pick about the shot. 😉
“C’mon! Enter! I triple-bird-dare you!”
That is very similar to my own thoughts about that image, Marty.
Now I’m thinking about Ralphie’s friend in A Christmas Story being triple-dog-dared to put his tongue on the frozen pole. And, of course, “Fra-gee-lay.” Good times.
I’ll admit it, I’ve never seen Christmas Story.
But I sure as hell put my tongue on a frozen swing set when I was in first grade. Not a fun memory. When things freeze in Montana they really freeze!
I’m watching it right now (drank coffee too late in the day).
I like the roughie on the sign. I have a few photos like that too, they always make me smile.
Thanks, April.
This Rough-legged Hawk appears quite reddish in the the first two photos; it would be easy for me to mistake it for a Red-tailed Hawk except for the tail feathers. The third photo makes ID obvious. The eye color looks like it might be a juvenile?
The sign could say DO NOT ENTER-OR GO AHEAD AND MAKE MY DAY.
Woke up to 3 inches of snow. The feeders are swamped with mostly Juncos.
Lyle, part of that color in the first two photos comes from the very warm early morning light rather than the bird.
Yes, that bird in the third photo is still immature, which may be part of the reason it was so sticky.
That first Roughie is so beautiful, it is too bad about his perch (“Roughie-on-a-Stick”)—but still, wonderful to see him in all his fluffiness on a cold, cold morning. And the traffic cop, too. 🥶
And now I think Mr Kestrel is just showin’ off for you, though he could have picked a less “messy” perch himself.
Chris, on that morning messy perches were the order of the day. Except for the first roughie I photographed who was on a nice natural perch but of course those photos were soft.
I am glad that Captain Picky could mostly ignore some ‘shortcomings’. I most certainly could – though he has trained me well and I could see them. See them and totally dismiss them.
Good to know you notice them now, EC. We gotta take the bad with the good when both are present. Thank you.
Exactly! Birds are real critters with real lives, not mannequins or models. I love seeing the context cues.
Roughies…Winter’s gift.
Yup. To replace the Swainson’s Hawks that were taken away.
Love!
Thanks, Kathleen.
Happy to see these tawny beauties ! Maybe “the warming” is making southward migration much later each year–I know it changed the arrival time
of the cranes at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico so significantly that
the timing of the “Festival of the Cranes” was seriously affected, even 3 or 4
years ago. I’m hoping that what we’re (not) seeing might be in part that
delay, and not the crash in numbers that it has appeared to be so far ?
Kris, the arrival of roughies to my area earlier this ‘winter’ was actually pretty much on time. But I know of several migration examples where their arrival has been significantly late, very possibly (even likely) for the reason you mention.
Those two Roughies are beauties and definitely good enough to ignore the unnatural perch. His eye looks like it is focused on you. I am sure I have mentioned it before, but I live in hope of seeing a Roughie. They are only found in small numbers here, but hopefully I will run into one sometime this winter.
Everett, I know they’re found in your general area in winter so I wish you luck!
Beautiful! Warm light really changes how they look. Could tell the light was changing by the time he was on the sign……. 😉 Glad he and the Kestrel cooperated.
Several HUGE flocks of Canada Geese came over high yesterday headed the “right” direction (S). Smaller flock “lower” last evening seeming to be looking for a place it set down for the night. 7 this morning – winter slipping in for the moment. Do have some snow on the ground. BRRRR! Never any “adapting” to the weather here!
Judy, when I was a kid on the farm I often wandered the creek behind our farmhouse for a mile or two. On one of those ‘walkabouts’ a flock of geese (actually many flocks packed together) flew over that was so huge it filled the sky from horizon to horizon. That doesn’t happen often out on the flats of “Big Sky Country”. Even at that young age I was so blown away I just laid on the ground next to the creek and watched and listened to them while looking up.
No, I didn’t get pooped on like I expected to but I sure as hell kept my mouth closed.
I raised pigeons at the time so I knew about the history of the Passenger Pigeon and it made me think of them. What a sight they must have been!.