{"id":139071,"date":"2023-07-08T06:06:57","date_gmt":"2023-07-08T12:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=139071"},"modified":"2023-07-08T07:24:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T13:24:37","slug":"coyotes-stealing-a-jackrabbit-from-two-golden-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/08\/coyotes-stealing-a-jackrabbit-from-two-golden-eagles\/","title":{"rendered":"Coyotes Stealing A Jackrabbit From Two Golden Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun a favorite older post. This one was published nearly nine years ago and I have mixed feelings about it. Without question it was one of the most memorable wildlife experiences I’ve ever had, but back then my photographer’s instincts weren’t what they are today. So I missed some opportunities for some pretty spectacular photos and that pains me. I’d give a lot to have a do-over. <\/em><\/p>\n

For this version I’ve changed the title, edited the text and tweaked the formatting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Yesterday morning there was some highly unexpected excitement on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

As per my usual track record with Golden Eagles, the resulting images of the incident range from mediocre to poor due to crappy light angles, being too far away, poor timing and the use of a short lens while my 500mm is in the shop. But I did document much of what happened and more importantly, I witnessed it. What fun!<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/p>\n

It all began when I unexpectedly encountered this Golden Eagle near a parking lot on the north end of the island. The eagle remained in place long enough for me to maneuver my pickup to get a few shots before it took off and dropped over the ledge behind it. I’ve seen two Golden Eagles on the island several times recently and I wondered if the other one was nearby.<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/p>\n

It was.<\/p>\n

Both birds landed on some rocks on Ladyfinger Point in good light but much too far away for my “pea-shooter” lens, the 100-400mm zoom, although I was able to document two corvid species harassing the eagles. A couple of Common Ravens let their displeasure about the presence of the eagles be known by…<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/p>\n

repeatedly dive-bombing them.<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/p>\n

But the Black-billed Magpies weren’t too happy about the situation either. At one point about a half-dozen magpies were harassing the eagles. Occasionally a few of them got close enough that at this distance it almost looked like one of the eagles could simply reach out and pluck a magpie off of its rocky perch.<\/p>\n

Another photographer got out of his vehicle and approached the eagles so eventually they took off but the light angle and distance weren’t helpful for quality flight shots. I left the area, hoping to encounter the eagles somewhere else on the island later in the morning.<\/p>\n

A while later, as I crested a hill and drove around a bend on a different part of the island, there was a flurry of activity up ahead. An eagle with a jackrabbit in its talons had just taken off from the ground with a group of several coyotes in hot pursuit. Jackrabbits are heavy prey and it’s difficult for a Golden Eagle carrying a jackrabbit to gain elevation quickly during take-off (something I’ve witnessed many times growing up on the Montana farm).<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

By the time I got fairly close (which required some highly creative driving) one of the coyotes had the rabbit and was skedaddling through the mullein with it. Though I didn’t see it actually happen (I miss a lot of things as I drive and maneuver), I believe that the pursuing coyotes got close enough to the eagle as it attempted to gain elevation that the bird deliberately dropped the rabbit in self-defense.<\/p>\n

The eagle you see in the background in this image is not the one that had been carrying the rabbit. It’s the second eagle, who defiantly stood its ground as the coyote ran by just a few feet away. The coyote isn’t very sharp because my autofocus locked on to the moth mullein in the foreground.<\/p>\n

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\"coyote<\/p>\n

The coyote crossed the road right in front of me in poor light and running as fast as it could with the heavy, awkward rabbit flopping around in its jaws. Other coyotes weren’t far behind, but a few remained and continued to harass the eagles.<\/p>\n

I believe there was a total of 7-9 coyotes involved in this incident, more than I’d ever seen together, before or since.<\/p>\n

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\"golden<\/p>\n

When the second eagle took off and then landed nearby, the eagle that had apparently killed the rabbit was already perched out of frame to the right.<\/p>\n

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\"coyote<\/p>\n

When the coyotes saw where the eagles had landed on the sagebrush, two of them took off after them.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

So the eagles took off as the coyotes got close to them. The coyotes at left may be difficult to see – their cryptic coloration is working well. As usual, several nosy and noisy magpies joined in the fun. I should mention that soon after this shot was taken, a third<\/em> Golden Eagle was spotted nearby.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I feel highly privileged when I’m lucky enough to witness events like this, even when I’m unable to get quality photos of what goes down. At first I was really bummed to not have had my 500mm lens to document all the excitement but as I reviewed my photos I realized that with the longer prime (non-zoom) lens I’d have missed some of the wider views of the interactions between several species and individuals.<\/p>\n

Overall, I was probably better off with my ‘baby lens’.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS – Sorry about the lack of image techs below each photo. With these longer posts I often simply run out of time.\u00a0 All photos were taken at f\/8 with the Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens and 1.4 teleconverter.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Some highly unexpected excitement on Antelope Island. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29251,"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":[3,334,374,392,394,642],"tags":[31,6997,3577,6998,6996,4547],"class_list":["post-139071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-coyotes","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-golden-eagles","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-black-billed-magpies","tag-coyotes","tag-coyotes-stealing-prey-from-golden-eagles","tag-golden-eagles","tag-jackrabbit-prey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/coyote-9579-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Ab5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139071","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=139071"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139135,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139071\/revisions\/139135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}