Behaviors – Page 105 – Feathered Photography

Peregrine Falcon Feeding Behavior (graphic)

The Peregrine Falcon has always been a nemesis bird for me. I’ve occasionally seen them far off, either in flight or perched, but have never been able to get close to one. All that changed last week when I spent an incredible half hour very close to a young bird while it was feeding on a female Northern Shoveler. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there was no LIGHT! DAMMITALL! It was heavily overcast with only a bright spot in the clouds to mark the position of the sun. As usual, this kind of situation requires lots of compromises between shutter speed, ISO, depth of field, motion blur, catch lights, ad infinitum… So compromise I did but I still got many feeding behavior images I find interesting. And since one of the primary focuses of this blog is bird behaviors, you guessed it – a blog post… First – a warning. Some of these photos are graphic. Proceed with caution if your sensitivities are fragile. 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc As I first approached this falcon it was depluming the duck. At times feathers were flying everywhere but at these shutter speeds and apertures many of those shots ended up in the delete bin. At this point I was still using the 1.4 teleconverter but the bird soon let me approach close enough that I was able to ditch the tc and get slightly more shutter speed. Take visual note of the size of the crop in this image when the falcon has just begun…

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

Just a Shot That I Like… #7 – Ring-necked Pheasant Roosting In Tree

Many folks think of Ring-necked Pheasants as strictly ground dwelling birds but that’s simply not the case. These pheasants regularly roost in trees at night and the following morning they will often be active in the roost tree for up to an hour before descending to the ground for the rest of the day. 1/800, f/8, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Virtually every time I’ve seen these birds in trees it’s been on very cold, sunny mornings so I’ve always had the impression that they’re sunning themselves to warm up a bit. Usually they flush to the ground for cover before I can get close enough for quality photos but this cooperative male apparently decided that his chill was more of a threat to him than I was. He let me shoot away from close range for quite a while even though he was perhaps 20′ up in the tree and on a very exposed branch. Long-tailed birds like pheasants and magpies can present difficult compositional problems when cropping for presentation but I though this vertical crop worked out well with him on the diagonal perch. 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…

A Very Cooperative Rough-legged Hawk

In a previous post I mentioned that I had been encouraged by the number of Rough-legged Hawks (roughies) I’ve been seeing this fall. Well I’m delighted to report that the situation continues to improve. On virtually every photo expedition over the last few weeks I’ve seen several of them and on two recent trips we’ve made about a dozen sightings of different individuals each time. However getting good photos of them is a different story altogether. After a season in the high arctic they’re very unapproachable and even when I have been able to get reasonably close they’re usually perched on an unattractive sign or post and take off away from me. All that changed a few days ago though when we found one very cooperative bird. This species has the most different male and female plumages (sexual dimorphism) of all our buteos and I’m quite sure this is a light phase female. 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc We first spotted this bird on a low wooden post that resembled a piling and I was pleasantly surprised that it let us approach (in my vehicle) with no signs of nervousness. It was early on a cold, frosty morning and while looking through the viewfinder I assumed that the material on top of the post was spider silk that had collected dew and then frozen. But after looking at the photos at home I wasn’t so sure so the next day I walked over to the post to check it out. Duh – should have known. It was frosted bison fur. This was Antelope Island…

Just A Shot That I Like… #1

Today I’m starting a new feature on FeatheredPhotography. Typically my posts include multiple images showing a sequence of photos that illustrate bird behaviors, photo techniques, favorite shooting locations and the like. That will not change. But now, in addition I will post a single shot that appeals to me for whatever reason and title the post “Just A Shot That I Like…” and these image posts will be numbered. This is post #1. The photos I choose may be new or from my archives. I’ll mention what I like about the photograph and any significant flaws I think it has. I’ll also include my image techs. My plan is to make one of these posts at least once per week, in addition to my regular posts. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I found this Song Sparrow early in January 2010 on the coldest day so far that winter. The entire refuge was covered in thick frost – it looked like a magical frosty fairyland all the way to the horizon. The sparrow was puffed up to keep warm and eating ice encased seeds it grabbed from its twiggy perch. I like the frost, the vertical position of the tail, the puffed up squatting pose, the ice crystals falling next to the tail and the whimsical mood of the image. Ron

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…

Angry Barn Swallow

As I approached the parking lot at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge just before taking the loop road there were myriads of swallows flying around as per usual in spring and early summer. I noticed this Barn Swallow on a post and decided to take a few shots. It let me approach very closely and I didn’t know why at first but it soon became very apparent that this bird was in distress. If you look closely at the image above you’ll notice that there is “something” connecting the tips of a tail feather and one of the primary wing feathers that prevented this bird from flying and as a result it was a very unhappy and frustrated bird! I photographed this swallow for over 10 minutes as it struggled to solve its incomprehensible problem. It would alternately attempt to break the connection by raising and extending its wings and… trying to reach the problem area with its beak, which it just couldn’t quite do. At times its apparent anger and frustration (anthropomorphic of me, I know) became quite evident as it would momentarily cease struggling and just sit there and call out pitifully. But eventually the connection between the feathers broke and the bird flew off instantly – so fast that I missed the shot. I still don’t know for sure what substance caused this problem. It has been suggested by others that it could have been spider silk. I’ve also wondered about the possibility of sticky tree…

American Kestrel, Preening and Stretching

This slightly wet and bedraggled (but still handsome) male kestrel was quite wary of me as I approached him on his favorite perch. 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 500, EV +0.67 American Kestrels are notoriously difficult to get close to and several times he nearly flew off as I slowly worked myself within good shooting distance. But it had been a cold morning and these birds are more “sticky” in the chill so he allowed me a relatively close approach. 1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, EV +0.33 Soon after he became comfortable in my presence the warming sun came out (as you can tell by the difference in background in the first two images) and he began to preen. I got many interesting images of him working on his tail feathers but this one shows the eye best. For protection of their eyes they typically close them as they run a feather through their beak. 1/1000, f/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33 And then he began a long, slow stretch – first by fanning his tail… 1/1000, f/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33 and then stretching out his left wing downward. As you can see, they often stretch all three “limbs” at the same time – tail, wing and leg. 1/1000, f/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33 When it was over he fluffed up his feathers and held this position, with one foot up, for quite a while to enjoy the warmth of the sun. I have many photos of perched kestrels but I don’t often get…

Burrowing Owls of Antelope Island

I simply adore watching and photographing Burrowing Owls. They show more personality and cute little quirks than any other avian species I’ve photographed – especially the juveniles. There are usually three problems with shooting these birds though – finding them in the first place, getting close enough to them for high quality photographs without disturbing their normal activities or making them nervous and catching them out in the open or on an elevated perch so that the vegetation that usually surrounds their burrows doesn’t obscure the birds. Two summers ago a family of these owls had their burrow right along the road on the Antelope Island causeway. They were obviously very accepting of all the traffic so getting close without disturbing them was no problem – I’d just pull up on the road edge close to their burrow and stay in my pickup to photograph them. I photographed them for almost two weeks and I’ve kept a ridiculous number of those images- just can’t make myself delete many of them. The family consisted of both parents and four juveniles. I spent most of my time photographing the juvies – they’re just so vivacious, spunky and full of life that they make wonderful subjects. The problem at this burrow site was two-fold – lots of obscuring vegetation and then when they did perch up higher it was usually on some unattractive pieces of broken concrete adjacent to the burrow. 1/1250, f/9, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Occasionally one of the juveniles would be perched on this rock when we…

The Trouble With Harems

Mia and I spent most of this week on a camping/photography trip to Flaming Gorge, Utah and we had some wonderful photographic opportunities with pronghorns. We camped on an isolated peninsula and it happened that a buck pronghorn was using the topography of the peninsula to help him keep control of his very large harem of females. The herd consisted of the lone buck and many females – both adults and juveniles. The male was in full rut and frantic to keep his does together and prevent several other males from running off with them. Does have varying mating strategies. Some does, called “sampling” females, will visit several males during the breeding season if allowed to do so. Others, referred to as “inciting females”, behave as sampling females until they come into estrus when they move off from the males which incites fights and aggressive competition between the males. These females always immediately mate with the winning male. Some females employ a third strategy where they join a single male and remain with him throughout estrus – these does are called “quiet” females. Canon 7D, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This poor buck was trying to control at least 28 females and was struggling mightily to do so. One evening we were at the bottom of a string of small hills just as the sun was setting (thus the warm, golden light in these photos). The buck and his females were strung out on the crest of several of the hills and one of the does was giving him a hard time by…

Brine Fly Feeding Frenzy at the Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake in northern Utah is a vital resource for many of North America’s birds. The lake is 75 miles long, 30 miles wide and has 1680 square miles of surface area and 335 miles of shoreline. Surrounding the lake are 400,000 acres of wetlands. Roughly 5 million birds of 257 species rely on the lake and those wetlands for food, sanctuary, breeding and as a migratory stopover. And one of the primary reasons the lake is such an asset for them is the endemic brine fly, Ephydra hians. Brine flies can be intimidating because of their massive numbers but they are truly innocuous. They are found only within a few feet of the shore, they don’t bite and won’t even land on humans. And they’re a huge nutritional resource for birds. In the photo above, the blurry brown bits in the background are brine flies in flight that have been stirred up by the feeding California Gull. Different bird species have varying feeding methods with these flies – this species often stakes out a few feet of feeding territory on the shoreline and then rushes through the hordes of flies on the sand, stirring them up, and then snaps them out of the air in large numbers. This bird is looking down the shoreline and preparing for its next run on the flies. Most of the flies are resting on the sand until the bird makes its run. As the gull rushes along the shoreline the flies are disturbed into the air and the bird snaps…

American Avocet Mating Displays

I’ve been fascinated by the mating displays of American Avocets ever since I first started photographing them almost five years ago. This innate and complex choreography is almost identical in different mated pairs and from year to year. The action happens quickly and is difficult to photograph well but I think I have enough decent images now to make an informative post about it. Not all of the photos are of the highest quality but I think each of them illustrates the behavior well. I’ll present several sequences of different birds that will illustrate most of the important stages of the process. I’m not going to include my techs with these shots -some of them were taken when I first started photographing birds and I made many mistakes in my setting choices. Knowing some of these settings wouldn’t help anyone. Avocets are monogamous and pairs form up in the spring when the female persistently associates with the male until she is eventually tolerated, then accepted as a mate. The female initiates copulation by the posture you see above. It’s called Solicitation Posture and in it she holds her neck extended far out and low. At times it’s so low that much of the head, bill and neck are under water as you’ll see in a later image. Once interested, the male performs Sexual Preening where he stands close to the female and extends his neck so that his bill tip can preen his breast (always on the side closest to her). You’ll see that part of Sexual Preening in a later image but…

The Shot That Broke My Heart

There was a range fire on the north end of Antelope Island yesterday that forced managers to clear out all campers from the campgrounds. So when we arrived early this morning the campgrounds were empty and this young coyote was hunting on the edge of Bridger Bay Campground. Canon 7D, 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, EV +0.33 Normally the coyotes on the island are elusive and difficult to approach but I believe this to be a young one so it didn’t seem overly concerned about us. Besides, he/she obviously already had a quarry in sight deep in the grass and wasn’t about to let us interfere with the hunt. In this image the coyote has just spotted something of interest in the grass some distance in front of “him”. Canon 7D, 1/1600, f/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33 Here the coyote begins to make his stalk. At first he didn’t crouch down so that he could see what ever it was he was after through the grass. Canon 7D, 1/1250, f/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33 But as he got closer (both to the potential prey and to me) he began to crouch down, almost in a cat-like manner. At this point I suspected that something dramatic might happen and tried to prepare myself for “the shot”. The most common prey of coyotes on the island is voles but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a vole because the coyote was too far away from his point of interest when he first spotted it to…

Category: Behaviors