{"id":156986,"date":"2024-04-12T05:47:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T11:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=156986"},"modified":"2024-04-12T06:04:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T12:04:04","slug":"american-kestrel-aom-is-still-thriving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/12\/american-kestrel-aom-is-still-thriving\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel – “AOM” Is Still Thriving"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a productive morning on Antelope Island yesterday, including seeing, hearing and\/or photographing multiple bird species for the first time this year. But one of my most memorable experiences was an encounter with an old feathered friend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I found this male American Kestrel on the roof of one of the pavilions. I immediately suspected that he was “AOM”, because he was perched on the roof of the same pavilion I found him on twice earlier this year.<\/p>\n

I call him AOM because those are the identifying letters on the large green band on his left leg. HawkWatch International banded him as a nestling in a nestbox on the island back in June of 2021. I know that because Jesse Watson of HWI provided me with his history when I reported him to HWI<\/a><\/span><\/span>, including photos where his green band letters could be read.<\/p>\n

However, when I had this bird in my viewfinder yesterday I couldn’t even see his bands, much less read them (which tells you how much this photo has been cropped and maybe how bad my old eyes are). So I only suspected that he was probably AOM. But “suspected” and “probably” don’t cut the mustard when it comes to reporting banded birds so all I could do was hope that I’d be able to tell if he was banded and, if he was, be able to read the band numbers\/letters when I zoomed in on the bird when I got home.<\/p>\n

This bird did me two favors when he took off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

He gave me a closer, better look at his legs which confirmed that he was banded on both legs and he also gave me a pretty nice flight shot, with him in a flight posture that I like very much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zooming in on that photo confirmed beyond any doubt that he was AOM.<\/p>\n

I’m beginning to have doubts that AOM has found a mate and is nesting this year because this was my fourth sighting of him since January and I haven’t yet seen him associating with a female. But I’m delighted to see him continuing to thrive.<\/p>\n

When it comes to nesting, there’s always next year.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

I had a productive morning on Antelope Island yesterday, including seeing, hearing and\/or photographing multiple bird species for the first time this year. (3 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156989,"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":[340,3,334,391],"tags":[31,7416,1432,7319,5626,311],"class_list":["post-156986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-banded-american-kestrel","tag-hawkwatch-international","tag-jesse-watson","tag-male-american-kestrel","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/american-kestrel-2557-horizontal-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-EQ2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156986","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=156986"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157016,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156986\/revisions\/157016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}