{"id":10024,"date":"2012-12-08T05:50:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T12:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=10024"},"modified":"2012-12-08T05:58:49","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T12:58:49","slug":"male-american-kestrel-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/08\/male-american-kestrel-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Male American Kestrel In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Until yesterday, I’ve been largely\u00a0stymied in my efforts got get good quality images of American Kestrels in flight.\u00a0 This has been especially frustrating because kestrels are the most numerous and widespread falcon in North America and they’re very common in my photography stomping grounds.\u00a0 I have many high quality images of them perched, but in-flight has been a different story.<\/p>\n

Because these falcons are small and their flight is swift and erratic, the photographer’s best chance is to catch them hovering.\u00a0 But they always<\/em> hover facing into the wind and it seems like every time I’ve had that opportunity with them the sun has been behind them.\u00a0 Or they’re facing away from me.\u00a0 Or I can’t get a catch light in the eye.\u00a0 Or they’re too far away.\u00a0 Or they stop hovering and fly further away just as I get the pickup stopped and my lens up.\u00a0 Or…\u00a0\u00a0ad infinitum.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But yesterday morning, this male forgot just how much fun it is to aggravate me and gave me some opportunities\u00a0in good light.\u00a0\u00a0 He would hover for a few seconds,\u00a0then move on to another nearby location and hover some more.<\/p>\n

It’s fascinating to watch them hover\u00a0up close through the lens.\u00a0 The wings alternate between\u00a0gliding and flapping and the tail is constantly adjusting to every minor variation in the\u00a0breeze but the position of the head seems to be absolutely fixed in space as it scans below, looking for prey.\u00a0 A true master of the air currents.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until yesterday, I’ve been largely\u00a0stymied in my efforts got get good quality images of American Kestrels in flight.\u00a0 This has been especially frustrating because kestrels are the most numerous and widespread falcon in North America and they’re very common in my photography stomping grounds.\u00a0 I have many high quality images of them perched, but in-flight has been a different story. Because these falcons are small and their flight is swift and erratic, the photographer’s best chance is to catch them hovering.\u00a0 But they always hover facing into the wind and it seems like every time I’ve had that opportunity with them the sun has been behind them.\u00a0 Or they’re facing away from me.\u00a0 Or I can’t get a catch light in the eye.\u00a0 Or they’re too far away.\u00a0 Or they stop hovering and fly further away just as I get the pickup stopped and my lens up.\u00a0 Or…\u00a0\u00a0ad infinitum.   \u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in But yesterday morning, this male forgot just how much fun it is to aggravate me and gave me some opportunities\u00a0in good light.\u00a0\u00a0 He would hover for a few seconds,\u00a0then move on to another nearby location and hover some more. It’s fascinating to watch them hover\u00a0up close through the lens.\u00a0 The wings alternate between\u00a0gliding and flapping and the tail is constantly adjusting to every minor variation in the\u00a0breeze but the position of the head seems to be absolutely fixed in space as it scans below, looking for prey.\u00a0 A…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340,334],"tags":[28,131,146,1035],"class_list":["post-10024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","tag-american-kestrel","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-flight","tag-hover"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2BG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}