{"id":18313,"date":"2013-09-09T04:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18313"},"modified":"2013-09-08T18:44:39","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T00:44:39","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-gliding-to-its-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-gliding-to-its-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk Gliding To Its Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a\u00a0 year ago I spent some time with this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk as it honed its hunting skills.\u00a0 It wasn’t yet a very good hunter but it sure tried hard.\u00a0 It typically perched on top of some rocky outcrops as it scanned the grassy slopes below for voles.\u00a0 Then it would swoop down and make its attempt, though\u00a0it seldom caught anything that I was aware of.\u00a0 Learning to hunt isn’t easy and the price to pay for\u00a0mediocrity is a dear one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Usually the hawk would swoop down to my left where the largest area of vole habitat was but\u00a0this time\u00a0it came directly toward me.\u00a0 It simply spread its wings and glided steeply down from its lofty perch.<\/p>\n

The hawk doesn’t stand out particularly well against the rocky\u00a0cliff but I like those rocks as a slightly unusual background.\u00a0 I’m quite surprised that I was able to keep focus locked on the\u00a0hawk as long as I did with the background so close to the bird.<\/p>\n

The intensity of\u00a0the gaze of a hunting raptor as it closes in on prey always impresses me.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 I’m delighted to be “on the road” again – it’s been a\u00a0very\u00a0long time between camping trips!\u00a0 As per usual I won’t be able to respond to comments for a few days (extremely spotty phone signal and no computer)\u00a0but I do get your comments via email on my phone and enjoy them very much.\u00a0 Hope to have some interesting shots to share when we get back!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a year ago I spent some time with this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk as it honed its hunting skills. It wasn’t yet a very good hunter but it sure tried hard. It typically perched on top of some rocky outcrops as it scanned the grassy slopes below for voles. Then it would swoop down and make its attempt, though it seldom caught anything that I was aware of. Learning to hunt isn’t easy and the price to pay for failure is a dear one.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18314,"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":[3,334,9,450],"tags":[31,452,178,256,451,311,315],"class_list":["post-18313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-favorite-locations","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-hunting","tag-prey","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-utah-2","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-7885-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4Ln","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18313","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=18313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}