![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/american-kestrel-5913-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYesterday’s post of the Barn Owl with a mouse (instead of a vole) reminded me of this American Kestrel with another mouse, also at Farmington WMA.\u00a0 I’m wondering if mice have now\u00a0largely\u00a0replaced microtine voles at Farmington and if that’s not a harbinger of even worse things to come.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This male kestrel landed very close to me\u00a0on a bent sunflower stem with its rodent prey.\u00a0 The mouse was still alive and\u00a0apparently not seriously\u00a0injured, though it had mostly ceased struggling and\u00a0seemed resigned to its fate.\u00a0\u00a0If you look closely you’ll even see light in its eye.\u00a0\u00a0 Immediately after this shot the kestrel took off in the direction it’s looking, landed again and administered the coup de gr\u00e2ce <\/i>to the mouse.<\/p>\n The more I think about it (and review my images) the more I suspect that mice are replacing voles in a (un?) natural succession around Farmington Bay WMA.\u00a0 The encroachment of suburbia is threatening to swallow up the place and where you have people living you tend to have more mice and fewer voles.<\/p>\n The recently proposed West Davis Highway may be the death knell for Farmington Bay WMA and healthy bird populations on a large portion of\u00a0the central east shore of the Great Salt Lake.\u00a0\u00a0It’s impact on birds and other wildlife\u00a0would be staggering and conservation groups oppose it vigorously.\u00a0 Here’s what the Friends of the Great Salt\u00a0Lake had to say about it:<\/p>\n “The proposal is a high-speed truck and car corridor paving over farmland, wetlands and homes that will become little more than a road to sprawling gas stations, big-box stores and new auto dependent homes.”<\/em><\/p>\n More\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0if you’re interested.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday’s post of the Barn Owl with a mouse (instead of a vole) reminded me of this American Kestrel with another mouse, also at Farmington WMA. I’m wondering if mice have now largely replaced microtine voles at Farmington and if that’s not a harbinger of even worse things to come..<\/p>\n