We returned home Thursday after spending three wonderful days camping at Flaming Gorge in NE Utah. This is very close to the view we had on most mornings from our campsites (two of them), though this image was taken the morning before the Osprey photo, below. As you’ll see, the lighting conditions were dramatically different…
Sunday morning we visited Utah’s west desert to see what we could turn up out there. We found a pair of American Kestrels, a few Swainson’s Hawks, one Ferruginous Hawk, several Turkey Vultures apparently feeding on a dead calf and four Red-tailed Hawks. But most were difficult to approach, in bad light or on ugly perches. Note: Some of this post may be of interest only to photographers. I apologize in advance to those of you interested more in the results of bird photography than in the process… 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in But we did find the nesting pair of red-tails that I’ve posted about previously. This bird was perched up a canyon near the nest where its mate was incubating eggs. I caught the hawk at lift-off… 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in and immediately after… 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in and I was able to keep the bird in focus for a long burst of 22 images as it flew to my left. The problem was that it had been perched above me on a hill so when it took off it mostly glided with its wings straight out and shaded underneath so many of those shots aren’t particularly interesting. 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in This was the last image with any light under the wings….
I was photographing adult male blackbirds when suddenly this very recently fledged youngster popped up in the cattails right in front of me. At first I thought it was just curious about me and my big truck but that turned out not to be the case.
My encounter with this Rough-legged Hawk was a frustrating one. It all began with a Northern Harrier on the snow-covered ground with prey (which turned out to be a Pied-billed Grebe) . It was quite far away, even if my tc had been attached (it wasn’t), so I put my pickup in gear to drive further down the road. Just then this hawk swooped in from behind (I couldn’t see it coming) to pilfer the prey from the harrier. By the time I got the pickup turned off and my tc attached the action between the two raptors was over – the harrier had vamoosed with the head of the grebe (based on the photos Mia was able to get) and the roughie was on the ground with what was left. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Here the hawk is “mantling” the grebe. Mantling is a behavior of raptors where they spread their wings, fan their tail and arch their body over their prey – effectively hiding it from other predators, particularly other raptors. In this image the tail isn’t completely fanned and the bird is looking back at us rather than arching its body. There’s a patch of blood on the snow and you can see part of the grebe under the right wing. 1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in The hawk quickly gobbled down what was left of the grebe, inspected the…
I’ve said before how much I prefer the very dark Farmington Canyon Complex rocks on Antelope Island as perches, over the bright white Tintic Quartzite rocks found on the northern part of the island. This juvenile Red-tailed Hawk made my morning last month when it chose just such a rock to hunt from. I always enjoy it when I can get multiple shots of some interesting behavior or action in sequence. To me it’s almost like a very slow motion video and though it may include a few images that aren’t perfect individually I think that collectively the photos gain value as a group for what they illustrate – the whole can be greater than its parts. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, shot from pickup window, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Photographing take-offs is always a challenge. The bird may just sit there for a half hour or longer but when it happens it’s quick and easy to miss. 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, shot from pickup window, natural light, not baited, set up or called in You also need to be concerned about what direction it will go and if you’re too close (it’s easy to clip wings if you are) or too far away (which shows less detail). Those with zoom lenses have an advantage over me because they can quickly adjust their focal length to whatever they want within their zoom range, while the only option I have is to attach or detach my teleconverter, which is cumbersome and takes time. …
For several months this winter this young Prairie Falcon would hang around the Antelope Island causeway in the early mornings hunting ducks (mostly Northern Shovelers). There’s very few ducks there now so the falcon spends most of its time on the island (rather than on the causeway) hunting Western Meadowlarks and Horned Larks. Since falcons are much more difficult to approach in the wide open expanses of the island I doubt I’ll get any more closeups of this bird anytime soon. 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4 On this mostly cloudy morning the light was poor but shortly after I approached this bird there was just enough sun coming through a thin spot in the clouds to give me some light in the eyes. Some of the lower feathers of the falcon were wet and bedraggled which I assume was caused by hunting ducks in the shallows of the lake. I’m always delighted whenever I can get close enough to one of the larger falcons that I can remove my teleconverter. To say that doesn’t happen very often is huge understatement. Ron
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…
I was looking down on this Rough-legged Hawk from an elevated road when it decided to take off. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This shot illustrates both the blessing and the curse of using an attached teleconverter. If I hadn’t been using the tc for this image I’d have had two choices: 1), crop so that the hawk was much smaller in the frame which would have reduced the impact of the image or 2), crop so the bird was still this large in the frame which would have significantly reduced image quality and increased noise. So I’m glad I had the tc on for this shot. However, after take-off this roughie unexpectedly flew past me very close and I clipped or cut off many body parts in most of those images. If I hadn’t been using the tc I’d likely have been able to get some pretty spectacular flight shots with this nice background and good light. You just never know… Ron
Red-tailed Hawks are common and widespread throughout most of North America but I typically find them to be wary and difficult subjects to approach and photograph. However we did have some pretty good luck with them a couple of mornings this past week in western Utah. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/6.3, EV -0.67, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc We found them deep in a canyon of one of the many “island mountain ranges” of Utah’s west desert. There were at least a half-dozen of them hanging out together, many of them juveniles. The lighting at the bottom of the canyon in early morning was often filtered and spotty and the perches were usually dead trees with lots of branches going every which way so the backgrounds and settings were typically busy. This is one of the cleaner shots I got of one on a perch in the canyon bottom. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 640,EV -1.00, 500 f/4 This one chose a juniper perch which would provide a clean background for a takeoff shot so I tried to leave room in front of the bird just in case. I was looking slightly down on the hawk when it launched and I liked the good look at the topside of the bird in this shot but do wish it had been looking more my way. But then I probably wouldn’t have any light on the eye – sometimes you just can’t win… Canon 7D, 1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 640 EV +0.33, 500 f/4 Shooting these hawks in flight was very frustrating! Each morning they would pretty much…
