{"id":104731,"date":"2021-12-05T05:35:08","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T12:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=104731"},"modified":"2021-12-05T05:59:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T12:59:32","slug":"male-american-kestrel-in-a-variety-of-poses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/05\/male-american-kestrel-in-a-variety-of-poses\/","title":{"rendered":"Male American Kestrel In A Variety Of Poses"},"content":{"rendered":"

And a Rough-legged Hawk thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

It was mostly a very slow morning for birds two days ago during a trip to Bear River MBR and vicinity. But at one point I had to make a choice between three different potential raptor subejcts – a Rough-legged Hawk I saw dive on prey next to the road in front of me, a second roughie that soon after was perched on a fence post across the river and a male American Kestrel perched in a tree on my side of the river.<\/p>\n

For a variety of reasons the kestrel seemed the best choice so I approached him as close as was practical and hoped he wouldn’t spook.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

He didn’t but he still wasn’t very close so these photos of him have been cropped significantly and don’t have great detail..<\/p>\n

For a while he kept a close eye on my pickup but he soon relaxed and pulled his right foot up into his belly feathers in typical kestrel fashion. This shot caught him just before his foot disappeared into his plumage.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Some time after that he begain an extensive stretching routine. First he stretched his tail, right wing and right leg and then he…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

switched sides with his tail twisted to his left side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Next came a vertical wing lift to stretch his shoulder muscles.Since stretching is often an indicator of imminent takeoff I hoped for a chance at takeoff and flight shots but that didn’t happen. He just settled in on his perch again.<\/p>\n

But eventually he took exception to the presence of the Rough-legged Hawk on the other side of the river and…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

dived on it a time or two in an attempt to drive it off. Sadly I didn’t get any photos with both birds in the frame but here the hawk is still in an alert pose after being attacked. The roughie held its ground and didn’t fly off.<\/p>\n

And no, I don’t know what the bright glob is above the hawk’s head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the kestrel returned to a different branch in the same tree and repeatedly tried to hack up a pellet. During the process I fired off several bursts but if he was successful I missed capturing the pellet falling to the ground.<\/p>\n

Kestrels have been pretty scarce all summer but in the areas I haunt I’m finally beginning to see more of them. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a little closer to the next one I photograph.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

And a Rough-legged Hawk thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104735,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340,334,358],"tags":[28,2795,534,131,211,245,269,511],"class_list":["post-104731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-rough-legged-hawks","tag-american-kestrel","tag-bear-river","tag-buteo-lagopus","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-male","tag-pellet","tag-rough-legged-hawk","tag-stretching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/american-kestrel-2270-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-rfd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104731","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=104731"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104764,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104731\/revisions\/104764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}