{"id":115665,"date":"2022-08-02T05:26:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T11:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=115665"},"modified":"2022-08-02T05:26:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T11:26:56","slug":"ferruginous-hawk-takeoff-and-flight-after-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/02\/ferruginous-hawk-takeoff-and-flight-after-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferruginous Hawk Takeoff And Flight After Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

A twelve-image series, taken two days ago.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s been a very long time since I’ve even seen a Ferruginous Hawk, much less photographed one, so two days ago I was tickled red (I don’t do pink, not even for a Ferrug) when I spotted this immature bird hunting from atop a rocky outcrop in the desert. I didn’t find ‘her’ until nearly 9 AM and by then the light was already beginning to get a little harsh in that landscape. I wasn’t particularly close to her either, but I could tell she was hunting so I hoped for flight and takeoff shots when she launched after prey.<\/p>\n

She cooperated twice when she took off after prey in a good direction for photos. I screwed one of those opportunities up because I’d momentarily glanced away from my viewfinder when she took off, but I did pretty well the other time. These are those photos.<\/p>\n

In this shot she’s scanning for prey in the flats on the other side of the road I was on. A moment after it was taken she spotted something in that direction and took off after it. This photo, and the following nine, are sequential shots in a burst without any skips. After that there are skips.<\/p>\n

The photos mostly speak for themselves so I’ll keep my narration to a bare minimum.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve cropped this shot looser to include the perch she took off from, for the perspective it provides.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

After this shot I took nine photos of her where she was too close to the right frame edge, or I clipped body parts, so I haven’t included any of them.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I got her in frame for one more reasonably sharp photo\u00a0while there was a hill in the background and not long before she passed in front of my pickup. Notice that she’s already beginning to flare as she descends and slows down as she gets closer to the potential prey.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever she was after, probably a vole, she missed it so she came back to the same rocky outcrop to try again. I didn’t get any photos of her returning to her hunting perch, either because my windshield was in the way or because…well, I just botched them.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the first sharp shot I got after she landed on the rocky outcrop again. This time she landed lower on it – her previous perch is just out of frame at upper left. In this photo she seems to be looking in frustration back at the spot where she’d missed the presumed vole.<\/p>\n

Not long after I took this series of photos I left her and headed for home. In some ways it’s hard for me to imagine leaving a cooperative Ferruginous Hawk but the light was beginning to get harsh and with the sun higher in the sky it was becoming more difficult to get light in her eye.so I decided it was time.<\/p>\n

I hope she eventually caught that vole. Or one of its buddies.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

A twelve-image series, taken two days ago.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115670,"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":[334,377],"tags":[531,138,146,178,768,190,2738,6470,311],"class_list":["post-115665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ferruginous-hawks","tag-buteo-regalis","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-flight","tag-hunting","tag-immature","tag-juvenile","tag-takeoff","tag-twelve-image-series","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ferruginous-hawk-9414-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-u5z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115665","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=115665"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115728,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115665\/revisions\/115728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}