circus cyaneus – Page 6 – Feathered Photography

Northern Harrier – Wing Extension And Tail Flare

This is another image of the harrier with an unusual tail feather.

Northern Harriers In Flight (and a tribute to an old lens)

Proof positive that the aging Canon 100-400mm lens can take high quality images.

Northern Harrier Take-off From The Frozen Marsh

Thanks to cold temperatures and significant snow, some of the Northern Harriers at Farmington Bay are once again hunting closer to the road.

Northern Harrier – Image Stabilization & A Crazy-Fast Shutter Speed Save The Day

This image was taken in what I thought were probably impossible conditions to get a sharp shot. Normally it isn’t a shot that I’d even attempt.

Hunting Northern Harrier Turning Away From Me In Flight

I like to get the interesting ventral plumage patterns of Northern Harriers in my images whenever I can. They tend to fly low when hunting so I don’t often get a good look at the underside of both tail and wings in the same shot. But this bird cooperated for an instant and I happened to fire my shutter at just the right moment.

Northern Harriers Playing With Toys

In a recent post I documented “play” in Northern Harriers. Two days ago I photographed two of them playing – with each other and with “toys”.

Northern Harrier “Playing”

Play has been well documented in some bird species and I believe I photographed that behavior in a Northern Harrier this week. This bird was too far away for quality images but I think the behavior is well documented in the photographs. I first spotted this hawk on an ugly metal fence post but as soon as I stopped my pickup to watch it through my lens the wary bird took off. Almost immediately it performed a spectacular and classic harrier mid-air maneuver by changing directions and pouncing on something in the grasses. I presumed it to be a vole. For about two minutes the bird continually struggled, wrestled and pounced on something I couldn’t see. The activity was quite frenetic and I took many photos of it. As I watched through my lens I wondered if the harrier was trying to avoid being bitten by a vole or even a larger rodent. Eventually the harrier took off with its “prey”, which turned out to be dried cow poop. Cow pies are common in this area because refuge managers run cattle there in the summer in an attempt to control invasive phragmites (personally I’m not a fan of cattle on public lands but that’s another story…). The harrier carried the cow pie only a few feet… before dropping it. Whether that was done deliberately or not I don’t know but I suspect that it was because in the image just before this one (just as the pie…

A Tough Winter On Northern Harriers

The winter of 2008 was severe and it put a lot of survival pressure on our resident birds, particularly raptors. The number of Northern Harriers wintering over at Farmington Bay seemed unusually high and toward the end of the winter there was intense competition for dwindling food supplies.

Male Northern Harrier – Gray On Gray

I photographed this male Northern Harrier earlier this month as it hunted the causeway to Antelope Island. The grayish-browns of the bird are similar to the grays of the Great Salt Lake mudflats in the background. Monochromatic images like this may be an acquired taste for many and it was through the influence of my friend and photographer Richard Ditch that I learned to appreciate them.