{"id":20714,"date":"2013-12-16T05:51:59","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T12:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=20714"},"modified":"2013-12-16T06:19:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T13:19:40","slug":"rust-on-rust-female-american-kestrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/16\/rust-on-rust-female-american-kestrel\/","title":{"rendered":"Rust On Rust – Female American Kestrel"},"content":{"rendered":"

This female American Kestrel has been hanging around the same area of Farmington for almost two weeks now.\u00a0 Yesterday morning we\u00a0found her near the end of one of her meals.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\"american<\/a>1\/2000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0She was just finishing up with a small bird, possibly a junco.\u00a0 There wasn’t much left of the bird except part of the wing or tail which she had a difficult time swallowing –\u00a0flight feathers and all.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a>\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Here she paused in her efforts for a\u00a0few moments and I thought she might have to expel this part of the meal but eventually she got it down.\u00a0 The morsel was almost entirely feathers with just a small piece of flesh on one end.\u00a0 I guess every little bit of sustenance is critical in harsh conditions like this (cold and snow).<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a>\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After\u00a0the meal she did a little grooming (cleaning her feet in particular) and then sat here calmly for a period, despite the\u00a0earsplitting noise\u00a0coming from a hunter’s airboat warming up very close by.\u00a0 This is the second time I’ve watched her calmly eat her meal\u00a0from this spot while nearby airboats were producing an incredible racket.\u00a0 She’s a gutsy little falcon.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a>\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In her previous pose I could see very little of the tail so I was happy when she turned slightly just prior to take-off.\u00a0 I was struck by the similarities in colors and even patterns of her plumage and the rusty angle iron\u00a0perch – thus my title.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a>\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in, sliver of canvas added for composition<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When larger falcons (Peregrine and Prairie, for example)\u00a0take off\u00a0they often hold their wings up high for a moment before they lift off but in my experience (even though they too are falcons)\u00a0this is something kestrels seldom do\u00a0 Usually kestrel take-off is instantaneous but this little lady fooled me and acted like one of her larger cousins just prior to lift-off.<\/p>\n

I plan on going out shooting later\u00a0this morning and you can bet that I’ll be looking for this tough little falcon once\u00a0again.<\/p>\n

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

This female American Kestrel has been hanging around the same area of Farmington for almost two weeks now. Yesterday morning we found her near the end of one of her meals.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20725,"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":[340,334,392],"tags":[1174,131,1045,137,256],"class_list":["post-20714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-eating","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-farmington","tag-female","tag-prey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/american-kestrel-8046b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5o6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714","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=20714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}