{"id":18054,"date":"2013-09-04T05:46:27","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T11:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18054"},"modified":"2013-09-04T05:46:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T11:46:27","slug":"young-ferruginous-hawk-siblings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/04\/young-ferruginous-hawk-siblings\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Ferruginous Hawk Siblings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer has apparently been a good breeding\u00a0season for Ferruginous Hawks in southwest Montana.\u00a0 I photographed about a half-dozen active nests or recently fledged family groups in or near the Centennial Valley (never approaching the nests too closely or disturbing the birds).\u00a0 I was\u00a0often not very close so many times my images weren’t of the best quality (as is the case with these photos) but for me it’s always more about the birds than it is the images anyway.<\/p>\n

This is a family that I haven’t posted about previously.\u00a0 We found them a little over six weeks ago on our last Montana camping trip.<\/p>\n

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\"ferruginous<\/a><\/p>\n

The nest was apparently in a clump of trees that we could see but couldn’t get close to but by the time we found the young birds they\u00a0weren’t spending much time there anyway.\u00a0 The youngsters hadn’t been fledged for long and didn’t stray far (perhaps a mile) from where I believe the nest was located.\u00a0 They had some favorite places to hang out – this pitted boulder was one of them.<\/p>\n

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\"ferruginous<\/a><\/p>\n

Another preferred lounging spot was these massive rocks about a quarter-mile from the road.\u00a0 Both of these birds are youngsters.\u00a0 Ferruginous Hawks remain in loose sibling groups for some time after fledging and that was certainly the case with these young birds.<\/p>\n

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\"ferruginous<\/a><\/p>\n

We witnessed an interesting scene one morning with these three siblings.\u00a0 They were on the ground in a spot fairly close to where I assume the nest was and seemed to be alternately feeding and playing with various\u00a0food items spread over the\u00a0area.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I couldn’t identify the object that the middle bird is interacting with but through the\u00a0lens both Mia and I could tell that it was flexible and not rigid.\u00a0 Though it resembles a piece of wood I’m sure it was not and it certainly wasn’t a rock.\u00a0 \u00a0The bird spent quite a while pecking at the object and moving it around.\u00a0 The other two birds\u00a0also seemed to be picking at various food bits spread throughout the area.<\/p>\n

It’s my\u00a0guess that this may have been a “feeding area” where the adult birds would regularly\u00a0deliver prey items to the siblings.\u00a0 I hate to speculate but sometimes I just can’t help myself…<\/p>\n

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\"ferruginous<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the best flight shot I was able to get of any of these hawks.\u00a0 I wasn’t very close so the detail isn’t there but I like the wing position, light and sagebrush setting.<\/p>\n

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\"ferruginous<\/a><\/p>\n

Once, one of the adults flew in and landed on this pole very close to us.\u00a0 I chose to focus on the pole and fire away as it landed rather than follow it in flight.\u00a0 The image is pretty tight, I have no eye contact\u00a0and the perch isn’t ideal but I love the light and detail on those magnificently spread wings.<\/p>\n

This adult spent quite a while on top of the pole as it watched over its young family.<\/p>\n

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

This summer has apparently been a good breeding season for Ferruginous Hawks in southwest Montana. I photographed about a half-dozen active nests or recently fledged family groups in or near the Centennial Valley.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18055,"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":[334,377,1493],"tags":[531,138,145,220,228],"class_list":["post-18054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ferruginous-hawks","category-montana-favorite-locations","tag-buteo-regalis","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-fledgling","tag-montana-2","tag-nest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ferruginous-hawk-2608-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4Hc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18054","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=18054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}