{"id":21461,"date":"2014-01-16T06:46:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T13:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=21461"},"modified":"2014-01-16T06:46:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T13:46:15","slug":"a-possibly-damaged-adult-red-tailed-hawk-and-a-lesson-in-jumping-to-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/16\/a-possibly-damaged-adult-red-tailed-hawk-and-a-lesson-in-jumping-to-conclusions\/","title":{"rendered":"A Possibly Damaged Adult Red-tailed Hawk (and a lesson in jumping to conclusions)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever I see an injured bird my heart sinks and\u00a0for\u00a0some illogical reason\u00a0my angst is even greater when it’s a raptor.\u00a0 For that\u00a0 reason I was very curious about something about this hawk that\u00a0I first noticed through my lens .<\/p>\n

I hate to post this first image because the bird isn’t particularly sharp (for a variety of reasons related to\u00a0the driver\u00a0being the photographer) but this image\u00a0best shows what I noticed.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

While photographing this adult at Farmington Bay two days ago I noticed some kind of apparent anomaly where the upper mandible meets the forehead.\u00a0 At the time I thought it might simply\u00a0be some unruly feathers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

But a huge crop (that sadly exaggerates the softness of the image) also reveals a possible abnormality involving the cere (fleshy, featherless skin\u00a0covering of the base of the upper mandible).\u00a0 The normally yellow, fleshy cere of this species seemed to be largely\u00a0missing or diminished on the\u00a0right side and the feathers above the nostril\u00a0appear to be matted.\u00a0 This wasn’t just a momentary phenomenon as I noticed it for nine full minutes after the hawk flew to its next perch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

The bird then flew to this kestrel box and eventually turned to an angle that allows a good look at the normal-looking left side of the cere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Another heavy crop\u00a0(of the previous image) shows the normal side of the cere better.\u00a0 Notice that it is fleshy, featherless, yellow,\u00a0surrounds the nostril and looks quite different when compared to the right side\u00a0.<\/p>\n

I probably wouldn’t have paid a lot of attention to an unusual looking cere if I hadn’t also noticed the blown left eye (pupil appears to be “leaking”).\u00a0 The injured eye suggested to me the possibility that the anomalous cere could also\u00a0be an injury.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

When the bird took off after prey the white “bump” on the far side of the bill was still visible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

But when it returned to the nest-box it wasn’t nearly as apparent.\u00a0 And the\u00a0right side of the cere looked more normal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

And finally, another large crop of an image after the hawk landed\u00a0leads me to believe that the cere is actually normal and I was misled by out-of-place feathers, my attempt to “diagnose” through the viewfinder and my empathy for raptors.<\/p>\n

When I first began writing this post I was convinced the cere was abnormal and I was\u00a0too willing to go with that flow.\u00a0 Then the blown eye, which I hadn’t noticed in the field, led me further down the primrose path.\u00a0 Usually I pride myself on\u00a0being clinical in my observations and careful about my conclusions.\u00a0 I almost blew it this time.<\/p>\n

Yet another lesson learned.\u00a0 Hopefully…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 The blown eye doesn’t seem to interfere with the ability of this bird to capture prey.\u00a0 I saw\u00a0it catch a vole or mouse\u00a0and gobble it down in two “bites”.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever I see an injured bird my heart sinks and for some illogical reason my angst is even greater when it’s a raptor. For that reason I was very curious about something about this hawk that I first noticed through my lens.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21467,"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":[334,450],"tags":[399,452,1836,397,614,451],"class_list":["post-21461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-blown-eye","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-cere","tag-farmington-bay","tag-injury","tag-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/red-tailed-hawk-9465-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5A9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21461","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=21461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}