Yesterday was chock full of avian surprises!
It was overcast and gloomy the entire day, the kind of day we normally stay home, but in an effort to relieve cabin fever we finally broke down and left for Farmington at midday. While there we didn’t see many birds and almost left for home after one tour of the area but at the last minute decided to do another. That’s when this cooperative Barn Owl came into play.
The formidable talons of the larger falcons always impress me and this female Prairie Falcon gave me a good look at her scythe-like weapons. From the size of her hugely bulging crop it’s obvious that they serve her well.
Nine days ago at Farmington Bay the weather and the light were uncooperative but this female American Kestrel more than made up for it.
(Note: I needed twelve images to tell this story so don’t be surprised if this post takes longer than usual to load.)
It’s pretty unusual to be able to see prey in the talons with a topside view of a hawk in flight.
After yet another snowstorm all day yesterday I felt the need to post something this morning with absolutely nothing white in the background. This juvenile Red-tailed Hawk taking off after prey filled the bill.
Typically Northern Harriers in flight studiously avoid my vehicle but occasionally (very occasionally) one will continue to circle and come in quite close. On the rare occasion when this happens I always wonder why.
Yesterday morning a Rough-legged Hawk gave me a perspective on the alula that I had never seen (or at least noticed) previously. I was on the verge of deleting these images when at the last second something about the left wing caught my eye.
This female American Kestrel has been hanging around the same area of Farmington for almost two weeks now. Yesterday morning we found her near the end of one of her meals.
For me the background can sometimes be almost as important as the bird. In this case it’s probably because I identify so personally with what’s back there, even though it’s all out of focus. This place is where I cut my photographic teeth years ago.
During winter, photography in the valley of the Great Salt Lake can be difficult at best due to frequent inversions that trap fog and smog in the low-lying areas and that especially includes the marshes near the lake. These inversions often last for days or even weeks and the fog and smog get progressively worse each day. But the fortunate result for photographers is the thick hoarfrost that blankets everything in the vicinity of the lake if and when the fog burns off during the day.
I’ve only had two reasonably good chances at the dark morph of the Rough-legged Hawk and one of them was a highly unexpected encounter two weeks ago.
Two days ago this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk put on quite a show for me but for a variety of reasons I blew many of the chances I had with it.
Like some other buteos, depending on conditions the Rough-legged Hawk may hunt from the air using flapping/gliding flight or from an elevated perch but their tendency to hunt in flight goes up significantly with increasing wind speed. This makes sense because hovering in the wind requires less energy than flapping flight.
Eight days ago I photographed a Northern Harrier as it flew toward me at an angle and then banked away. The following day, because of time constraints and computer issues I posted only a single shot of the banking maneuver but now I wish I had posted the entire flight sequence of four images. With your indulgence for posting the same image twice I’ll do just that this morning.
