Birds – Page 281 – Feathered Photography

American Kestrels – What They’ll Eat and What They Won’t.

I’ve always found it fascinating to watch these little falcons eat. A gruesome experience to be sure but so much more interesting than observing a raptor such as an owl who simply swallows its prey whole. And if you watch carefully there’s a whole lot more going on during the process than first meets the eye. Kestrels can be pretty picky eaters. I’ve documented in another post on this blog that they often refuse to eat the intestinal tract of their prey and deliberately discard it. Kestrels, like other raptors, eject pellets of indigestible materials like fur, feathers, chitin and bone. All food that is swallowed first goes to the crop. From there the usable food continues on to the stomach but the indigestibles stay in the crop, are formed into a pellet and regurgitated roughly 23 hours (in the case of kestrels) after the meal was consumed. Canon 7D, 1/800, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500mm f/4, 1.4 tc The kestrels I’ve watched eating voles and mice typically eat the brain, decapitate the rodent, then go for the soft internal protein rich muscles and other organs (discarding the intestines). Since kestrels tear their prey into bite-sized pieces they can pick and choose what they actually swallow. Canon 7D, 1/400, f/8, ISO 640, 500mm f/4, 1.4 tc Pellet expulsion can be difficult and traumatic as I’ve documented elsewhere on this blog with Northern Harriers and I suspect that’s one of the reasons that kestrels try to avoid swallowing as much fur as possible. When opening up the body cavity they often get a beak-full of…

Northern Harrier with Nesting Material

I’ve been photographing Northern Harriers in northern Utah for five years now and until earlier this week I’d only seen this species carrying nesting material once before and wasn’t able to photograph it. Harriers are very common here during winter but most of them head north for the breeding season and those that stay usually build their nests in inaccessible areas of the marsh, so it’s rare for me to see any nesting activities. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 Two days ago Mia and I were photographing birds at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. We were about to call it a day because it was late in the morning and light was no longer optimal when we spotted this harrier flying at a distance. We figured it would veer off before it got close, as they always seem to do out there, but this one kept coming toward us. We were watching it through our lenses and soon noticed that it had nesting material in its beak. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 By chance we happened to be at a place on the dirt road that was within 100′ or so of the nest of this bird. It decided to ignore us and come in to complete its delivery. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400 The nest is apparently in this bed of last year’s dead Phragmites. The dark spots you see in the last three images of this…

Willet Wars

Earlier this week Mia and I witnessed an incredible display of avian aggression on Antelope Island. I’ve often seen and photographed battling birds but I’ve never before seen such a long-lasting and vicious fight as this one between two Willets. It lasted for over 20 minutes and I took 413 photos of the action but don’t expect high quality images in this post as the conditions were far from ideal. We had contrasty sidelight, lots of obstructingvegetation between us and the birds and constantly changing lighting conditions as clouds moved in and out and the birds moved from place to place as the battle raged. But as I’ve stated before on this blog I’ll often post images of interesting behaviors even if they are less than perfect in image quality. And to me this behavior was certainly interesting. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 500 The Willets were already fighting as we approached them in my pickup and they mostly ignored us after pausing for a few seconds when we first drove up. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 500 In this and the following image the bird on the right had its bill tightly clamped on the upper mandible of the other bird. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 500 The bird on the left was desperately trying to break the grip of its tormentor but it took some struggling before it finally succeeded. Canon 7D, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO…

Barn Owl in Flight – Finally Again!

It’s been over four years since I’ve been able to get flight shots of Barn Owls and it’s been a very long wait. Typically Barn Owls hunt only at night but during the cruel winter of 2008 a few of them were forced to hunt in the morning hours just to survive and I was able to get quite a few nice shots of them in flight. I haven’t seen them hunt in daylight since then, until just recently when I’ve discovered one individual that has been doing it regularly. 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 500 So far Mia and I have had two chances with this bird. It was flying along the side of the road so I had to speed up to get in front of the owl then quickly turn around so I could photograph it as it flew toward us with the light at the best angle. This owl was flying very fast toward an apparent destination (rather than hunting) so we’d get a few shots off as it passed by very quickly. 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 500 Then I’d very quickly turn around, race up the road to get ahead of the owl, turn around again and fire away as the bird flew by. 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 500 I was able to do that three times before I ran out of road. Very exciting! 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 640 Then a few days later, as we were returning from a morning of photographing other birds after clouds had moved in and we…

A Loggerhead Shrike, a Spider and Spit

A few days ago Mia and I found this Loggerhead Shrike sitting prettily on a dried sunflower on Antelope Island. The bird was using the sunflower as a hunting perch. 1/1600, f/8, ISO 500 I’ve always been amazed by the incredible eyesight of many bird species. This shrike somehow spotted a spider crawling through the thick grass about 20 feet away from where it was perched and immediately flew down to grab it. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 It was a relatively small spider and I have no idea how the shrike was able to see it in all the dense grass. Even though the background is busy here I still liked the shot for the interesting look at both the spider and the tongue of the shrike. It’s my presumption from looking at this photo that the saliva of the shrike is viscous and sticky, enabling the prey to stay attached to the tongue during the very fast process of pulling the spider to the back of the throat with the tongue. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 A heavily cropped, close-up view of the same image provides a clue. You can see that there’s a sheet of saliva stretched between the bottom of the tongue and the floor of the lower mandible and it does appear to be quite viscous. I had no idea that it would be so “juicy” in there. Nothing earth-shattering here, just some avian trivia in a photo that I found interesting (yes, my interests can be…

Common Merganser

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser. A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of her that I like. 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/500, f/7.1, ISO 640 Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck – a very effective tool for holding on to their slippery prey. 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot. This was one of the exceptions. 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/400, f/7.1, ISO 640 I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening. Here’s one image where I succeeded. 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 I’m convinced that the reason this merganser hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief. The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen. I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish – which is just what she’s doing in this shot. 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400 I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser could hold her crest – from slicked back…

Fish Eating Northern Harriers

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the winter of 2008 was a particularly brutal one in northern Utah. During January and February there was much more snow than usual and it was bitterly cold. During most winters our Northern Harriers rely primarily on voles as a food supply but in 2008 with the voles under the deep crusty snow our harriers were desperate for food. Birds of North America Online provides extensive information on the dietary habits of harriers. It lists small to medium-sized mammals (primarily rodents), birds, reptiles and frogs as harrier food sources, stating further that the diet of harriers during winter in their northern range (which includes northern Utah) consists of voles “almost exclusively”. I can find no mention of harriers eating fish, ever! Each year in early February some of our wetlands managers treat some of our ponds with rotenone (a chemical that prevents oxygen from being absorbed across fish gill membranes) in an effort to control the invasive and damaging carp that do so much damage to the emergent vegetation which is so vital for waterfowl. So, in 2008 for a few weeks, our desperate and starving harriers began to eat fish! In the three winters since then I have never seen harriers eating fish even though the dead carp are always plentiful after the rotenone kill. 1/1250, 1/1000, ISO 500 Many of the carp are brought to the shores or ice surface by Bald Eagles which makes them available to the harriers who generally cannot retrieve them from the water. 1/1250, f/8, ISO…

White-crowned Sparrow Bathing in a Lilac Bush

I have a serious case of unrequited spring fever. It’s been a long and dreary winter and it’s not over yet so when I stumbled across these images from last spring a few days ago I decided they were worthy of a post. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 It was just after a spring rain in May last year when the sun came out and I noticed this male White-crowned Sparrow fluttering around in my neighbor’s lilac bush so I quickly grabbed my gear and started firing away. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/3200, f/8, ISO 640 The sparrow seemed so ecstatic over his bath that he let me get close and pretty much ignored me. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 The leaves and especially the flowers were loaded with water and the sparrow was taking full advantage of the situation. Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 And the ecstasy continues. I guess there’s just something special about bathing in lilac water… Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2000, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Canon 7D, 1.4 tc, tripod, 1/2500, f/8, ISO 640 Some of these photos are far from perfect – the light was harsh, the bird was side-lit, I often didn’t get a catch light in the eye and the contrast was high, especially…

Chukars of Antelope Island

The Chukar, also known as the Chukar Partridge, is a species first introduced into North America from India in 1893. Since then they have flourished, particularly in the Great Basin of the American west where the largely feed on the seeds and leaves of cheat grass. Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake provides perfect habitat for them and they abound there. Chukar calling In the springtime there are times when the hillsides sound like the island has been overrun by domestic chickens from the calling of the Chukars. Preening on a rock perch Chukars are very prone to perch on rocks – especially in the spring. While there they call to other birds and preen. Sentinel birds of a flock also prefer elevated perches while on lookout, which of course is ideal for the bird photographer. Parent with chicks And here’s one of the reasons there’s so many Chukars on Antelope Island – the breed prodigiously. Clutch size can be up to 21 eggs! Chukar covey on boulder In late summer and fall Chukars often congregate in large groups. These coveys tend to consist of adults and their offspring but several family groups may mix together. Preparing to jump off the rock Like some other upland game birds, Chukars are often reluctant to fly. They will typically jump down from their perch and scurry through the vegetation to hide. They are very fast runners and easily outrun a human on foot. Rock hopping I’m often tempted to call these birds “rockhoppers” because of their tendency…

Northern Harrier Struggling to Expel a Pellet

Except for owls, all raptors have a crop for excess food storage. The parts of the prey that are indigestible are formed into a pellet in the gizzard and then regurgitated out of the mouth. These pellets contain hair, feathers, exoskeletons and sometimes (in the case of owls especially) the bones of their prey. I’ve noticed with many raptor species that expelling a pellet can be a difficult process, bordering on traumatic. Such was the case with this juvenile male Northern Harrier. I was watching this bird through my lens but not planning on getting any quality photos because the bird was strongly side-lit. But when he began trying to expel a pellet I couldn’t resist clicking away. Because of the side-lighting and relatively soft focus the images are not of high quality but I thought the behavior was interesting enough for a blog post anyway. All of the photos in this series are posted in the order that they were taken. The beginning of the struggle to expel the pellet Here the harrier is shaking his head from side to side to try to dislodge the pellet But with the effort he begins to lose his balance on the perch And almost falls over backward He begins to recover And then falls forward Begins to recover again Still recovering Recovered, but still with the pellet stuck in his mouth And finally the pellet has been expelled. As luck would have it my buffer had filled up and I missed…

Horned Larks Blowin’ in the Wind

I have particularly fond memories of Horned Larks from growing up on our northwestern Montana family farm near Cut Bank, Montana. The fallow barley fields and adjacent short grass prairies abounded with them. But since I began photographing birds I’ve had very few opportunities with them here in Utah – until last week when had a grand time with multiple cooperative larks in the foothills of the Stansbury Mountains. And yes, the wind was blowing briskly – a perfect situation to remind me of those Montana larks! Singing in the wind The wind seemed to inspire the males to sing as they all seemed to be singing up a storm on this day, despite the early February date. Blown off the perch While it may look like this male is taking flight, in reality it was being blown off the perch by a sudden gust of wind. If it had been taking off, both wings would be extended. Wind- disheveled feathers In this photo, the wind updraft from the rock perch blew a perfect semicircle of his upper chest feathers into his black neck ring, making him look pretty silly. Very obvious “horns” This photo shows the “horns” (occipital feather tufts) that are characteristic of the species. The horns are found on both sexes but they are much less obvious in the female and rarely erected. This frontal view of the head shows the horns most distinctly when they are raised. Horns laying almost flat At times the horns are laid flat against the…

Bald Eagle Eating a Fish in Mid-air

I’ve often seen Bald Eagles carrying fish but never one actually consuming the meal while flying. Until yesterday, when I got some photos of the behavior. Thanks to Mia for calling my attention to it or I may have missed the whole thing. Eating carp in flight At first I wondered if this eagle was only killing the carp with a lethal bite as I have seen other raptors do in-flight, but then I remembered that it was already dead when it was picked up by the eagle. These fish were killed by refuge personnel (they use rotenone) in order to prevent damage to the wetlands done by these invasive fish. Falling fish scales The four photos in this sequence are in the order that they happened. Here you can see scales and debris falling from the carp as the eagles very sharp bill does its damage. Part of the head, including gill flap (operculum) being torn off I suspect that the reason this eagle chose to consume at least part of its meal in flight has to do with competition. There weren’t many fish available and lots of hungry gulls and eagles to squabble over them. If an eagle tried to eat a fish on the ice (the ponds were mostly frozen) other birds would usually challenge them for the meal. Even gulls were at times very aggressive toward the eagles. On several occasions I observed gulls biting the tails of the eagles while both were in flight. Perhaps this eagle figured it had…

Handedness in Short-eared Owls

Last summer Mia and I spent four days photographing a family of Short-eared Owls in Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. There were two baby owls in a nest under a sagebrush guarded over constantly by the female while the male hunted and brought in food. That food in every instance that we saw was a vole (mouse-like rodent). Many of the photos I took were of the male in flight, returning to the area of the nest with a vole in his talons. Male with vole It wasn’t until I returned home and began processing the images that I began to notice that the male always seemed to carry the vole in its left foot. This piqued my curiosity about something I’d never considered – do some birds show “handedness” – the preference of using one limb as opposed to the other? Could this male owl, or perhaps all Short-eared Owls, be left-“handed”? Once again, carrying the vole in the left foot So I decided to do an inventory of my images of these birds to see what would turn up. After culling my photos of these owls from this trip I had 271 photos to go through. Most of those were flight shots of the male and in more than half of them he was carrying a vole. My goal was to try to determine how many “sorties” he made with a vole that I had photographed (I often got multiple shots of the male with the same vole in the same sortie) and determine what percentage of the time he…

The Bald Eagle and the Fish Hook

Last week while looking for Golden Eagles to photograph in the Promontory area at the north end of the Great Salt Lake we came across a group of adult and juvenile Bald Eagles feeding on a sheep carcass. The light angle was bad for photography but we couldn’t resist taking a few shots anyway. Bald Eagle with fish hook in bill We were quite close to one adult and when it flew off I instinctively fired off a few shots, despite the poor light. When I got home and looked carefully at those images I could clearly see this gold fish hook embedded in the base of the eagle’s bill. This bird was apparently feeding normally and I suspect that the hook will not cause it significant problems while it’s in Utah for the winter feeding on carrion. However I am concerned that, because of the position of the hook in front of the eyes, the hook will interfere with effective forward vision for fishing after it heads north in March. I hope it falls out or rusts off before that although I’m not sure if “gold” fish hooks rust at all. An internet search shows that fish hooks are an ongoing problem for both Bald Eagles and Ospreys. Ron

Bald Eagle Serendipity

This is another blog post that will be more about the experience of the photographer than about the quality of the images. My good friend Mia and I spent two days this week looking for eagles – both Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles. We found several of each species but it was a frustrating experience – driving large distances (over 500 miles) and then having bad light, bad luck, bad timing and lots of fog. Then, an unexpected surprise! Bald Eagle waiting for us to get home Immediately after getting home I noticed several neighbors down the street looking up in the direction of the large elm tree in my side yard. I ignored them at first but they persisted in staring so I followed their gaze and couldn’t believe what I saw toward the top of the tree – an adult Bald Eagle! I live in suburban Salt Lake City and have never seen an eagle in my neighborhood in almost 25 years. Of course, both Mia and I got out our photo gear and spent the next hour or so photographing the bird. It was challenging to get good images because of the steep angle and the fact that the eagle was buried in the tree with branches in front and all around. There were a few angles where we could get an almost unobstructed look at the bird but even then the background is very busy and there are shadows on the eagle. Wing stretch The eagle was very relaxed in our presence, even…

Category: Birds