{"id":19446,"date":"2013-10-23T06:15:19","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T12:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19446"},"modified":"2013-10-23T06:31:35","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T12:31:35","slug":"birds-befuddled-by-stray-feathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/23\/birds-befuddled-by-stray-feathers\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds Befuddled By Stray Feathers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing serious this morning – just a couple of interesting and slightly amusing observations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/a><\/p>\n

On\u00a0our trip to Montana’s Centennial Valley last month\u00a0we found this Swainson’s Hawk who was apparently enduring a bit of discomfort caused by a feather on its right shoulder that was amiss.\u00a0 At first I didn’t even notice the feather but\u00a0the bird’s body language seemed slightly off and I suspect it was due to the feather.\u00a0 In order to deal with it the hawk…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/a><\/p>\n

shook vigorously (rousing)…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/a><\/p>\n

and the offending feather drifted away (here you can see it just above the right wing primaries).\u00a0\u00a0Its eyes are\u00a0already following the feather as it floats away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/a><\/p>\n

The hawk continued\u00a0 to watch the feather as the breeze lifted it up and away.\u00a0 Even as the feather floated out of frame in the images that followed\u00a0it was obvious that the bird was still watching it.<\/p>\n

It’s a little thing I know but I’m always\u00a0amazed by the combination of visual acuity\u00a0and quick reflexes of raptors\u00a0in situations like this.\u00a0 The speed at which the hawk locked on to the feather was impressive – especially after\u00a0such a vigorous rouse.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0don’t know if the bird was actually “befuddled” by the feather but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

this Horned Lark certainly was.<\/p>\n

It had been preening and when it pulled its beak out of its plumage this feather came with it.\u00a0 The bird just sat there for a moment as if it couldn’t figure out what was going on and then it shook its head to dislodge the offending but of fluffy keratin.<\/p>\n

I actually missed the shots of the feather flying off because I was laughing.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Nothing serious this morning – just a couple of interesting and slightly amusing observations.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19453,"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":[334,354,360,645],"tags":[555,1704,174,255,994,646],"class_list":["post-19446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-horned-larks","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-swainsons-hawks","tag-centennial-valley","tag-feathers","tag-horned-lark","tag-preening","tag-rouse","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/horned-lark-6154b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-53E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19446","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=19446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}