![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rough-legged-hawk-3958-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"rough-legged-hawk-3958-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nAnd two additional ‘firsts’, all yesterday morning.\u00a0 All three of them came within a time span of 14 minutes.<\/p>\n
As you might expect from a post like this, these photos are more about ‘firsts’ than they are about great photography.<\/p>\n
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Around here, FOY Rough-legged Hawks are a pretty big deal so I felt I should mark the occasion by posting a photo. I was actually photographing the bird in the last two photos below when this light morph male Roughie unexpectedly flew in from the north, making a quick, furtive pass before he was gone.<\/p>\n
I was lucky to get any shots of him at all because right in the middle of a burst, my battery died. I need to watch my battery status more carefully, especially with the Canon R5.<\/p>\n
I was curious about when I photographed my FOY Roughie in past years so I researched my older blog posts, with these results:<\/p>\n
So this sighting yesterday, November 11, was just about on par. I hope it’s a good winter for Roughies around here. Last winter I saw very few. From several reports I saw, I believe many of them – more than usual – stayed a little further north in Idaho.<\/p>\n
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Just a few minutes before I photographed the Roughie I spotted this lone Turkey Vulture sunning itself on a faraway fence post. I couldn’t get any closer because to do so I’d have had to cross private land.<\/p>\n
I believe this is the first time I’ve seen a vulture in November and I’m virtually positive I’ve never seen a vulture this late in the year. I was very surprised to see it. We have snow coming in later today (it’s raining now) so I hope this guy headed south later in the day yesterday.<\/p>\n
Cornell’s Birds of the World has this to say about the timing of fall migration in western Turkey Vultures:<\/p>\n
“Migratory individuals in western North America leave their breeding areas in Washington, California, and Arizona to begin their outbound migration between 1 September and 23 October with the average start day around 4 October.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was photographing this handsome Prairie Falcon when the Roughie flew by. It’s the first Prairie Falcon I’ve photographed since December 5, 2023, so this is also a FOY bird.\u00a0 I wish it hadn’t been on a utility pole but the flip side is that it let me get close – quite unusual for a normally skittish Prairie Falcon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, it took off away from me and I never got any flight shots that didn’t include the pole and\/or wires. Because of the way the falcon’s body mostly conforms to the framing of the pole and wires, if the falcon had only looked back at me I think I would have quite liked this photo. At least it gives us a good look at much of the falcon’s ventral plumage. And its slightly flared alula.<\/p>\n So, it was a memorable morning to get three firsts in such a short time period. In a way, that’s “first” #4 because it was the first time that’s happened, ever.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And two additional ‘firsts’, all yesterday morning.\u00a0 All three of them came within a time span of 14 minutes. (4 photos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/prairie-falcon-4033-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"prairie-falcon-4033-ron-dudley\\"")
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