![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/northern-harrier-6586c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-6586c-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nPossibly the most challenging bird behavior I’ve ever attempted to photograph.<\/p>\n
Eight days ago, while I was driving slowly down a dirt road in northern Utah, two male Northern Harriers began their spectacular “Sky Dance” to the left of my pickup and close to me. As they continued their dance they crossed the road in front of me and danced some more on the other side.<\/p>\n
Almost miraculously I was able to maneuver my pickup into a position that allowed me to get my lens on one of them for a split second as he was diving straight down in what seemed to me like a death dive – he was that close to the ground and traveling that fast.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I got two consecutive shots with him fully in the frame but this is the only one that was sharp. His eye looks a little funky because his pupil is at the top of his eye – probably because he was looking, or trying to look, at the other harrier out of frame to the left.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Male harriers Sky Dance for two reasons, to advertise their occupancy of territory and to court females. These two males could have been competing for territory or courting a female that I didn’t see.<\/p>\n Over the years I’ve tried to photograph harriers Sky Dancing many times but because dancing consists of such speedy and acrobatic maneuvers, this photo is the best one I’ve ever managed to get. I’d describe Sky Dancing as a long and highly erratic series of loop de loops and corkscrew twists performed at high speed. Cornell’s Birds of the World describes Sky Dancing as follows:<\/p>\n “Each aerial display comprises a sequence of as many as 74 deep, “U”-shaped undulations covering a distance of up to 1 km at a height of 10\u2013300 m; most bouts about 25 “U”s at 20 m above ground.”<\/em><\/p>\n However you describe it, and however well you photograph it, Sky Dancing is an incredible behavior to witness. The Latin name of Northern Harriers is Circus hudsonius<\/em>, which makes me wonder if Sky Dancing was the reason “circus” was chosen as their genus name.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: Because it’s so difficult to keep dancing harriers in the frame, even with video where the subject is usually much smaller in the frame, I had a hard time finding a video clip I could link to that would adequately document how incredibly acrobatic Sky Dancing actually is. <\/em><\/p>\n