![\"red-tailed](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-5298-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAfter it took off it circled overhead a little closer to show a little more plumage detail.<\/p>\n
I’ll admit to being mostly ignorant about molting patterns in raptors but I’m very curious about what’s going on with this bird.\u00a0 It was my understanding that the molt is typically much more gradual than this (especially in raptors, whose molt takes longer than it does in most other birds) so that the loss of feathers isn’t so extreme at any one time.<\/p>\n
I also thought that raptor molt was usually symmetrical and bilateral with the bird losing corresponding feathers on both sides at the same time so that balance in flight is relatively unaffected.\u00a0 The loss of feathers on the right wing of this hawk seems extreme to me.<\/p>\n
Some of you have much more experience with raptors than I – any idea what’s going on?\u00a0 Could this be within the range of “normal” molting patterns?\u00a0 Could it be a combination of\u00a0molting and loss of feathers due to a fracas with another raptor or some other violent encounter?<\/p>\n
I’d appreciate any thoughts you\u00a0may have.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This might just be the rattiest looking raptor I\u2019ve ever encountered in the wild.<\/p>\n
I found this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk three days ago in Box Elder County, Utah. It was too far away for good photos but even so I scoped it out with my lens for ID and to look for anything unusual.<\/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":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":[5,334,1004,450],"tags":[689,452,847,749,451],"class_list":["post-14384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-falconry-2","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-box-elder-county","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-falconry","tag-molt","tag-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3K0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14384","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=14384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"red](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-5285-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n