I rarely photograph raptors on utility poles anymore but I’ll always make an exception for Prairie Falcons. Especially when they allow me to observe some of their behaviors up close. (7 photos)
Or perhaps it was a combination of revenge, anger and frustration. Or something else but I doubt it was simply play.
Have you ever accidentally (or on purpose, c’mon – admit it!) had your fingers stuck together by superglue? If so this swallow knows how you felt.
Many bird species are known to play and I photographed a juvenile Western Grebe doing just that three days ago at Farmington Bay WMA.
Occasionally I keep coming back to an image despite its flaws. This is one of those.
Two days ago as I was photographing this dark morph Swainson’s Hawk on a power pole something completely unexpected happened and this time I was ready for it.
As some of you will remember, I’ve recently made two posts calling into question some of the ethics of the “sport” (some don’t like that term) of falconry. This was the bird that prompted my most recent post – an “escaped” female Peregrine Falcon that I photographed along the Antelope Island causeway a few weeks ago. You’ll notice that she still has her leather falconry anklets above her feet (only one can be seen in this photo). And last year, this escaped male American Kestrel was loose near Farmington Bay WMA and it still had not only its anklets but its jesses. The extreme danger to the bird of having those long, dangling jesses engangle and kill the kestrel is obvious. In both posts I questioned the ethics of falconry in general, but admitting my relative ignorance of the subject I asked (on the second post) for more information from my readers to “enlighten” me on the subject. For those who haven’t seen those posts and have the interest, here’s the links: Escaped Falconry Bird – Peregrine Falcon Escaped Falconry Bird – Peregrine Falcon, Again Mark Runnels, a master falconer from Oklahoma, responded to the second post with a series of very detailed, knowledgeable and thoughtful comments on falconry – responding to each of my concerns dispassionately and eloquently. However, that post was made on September 17 and Mark didn’t begin to comment until October 23, which means that his valuable information likely went under the radar for most of my readers (very few folks come back to a…
