{"id":21524,"date":"2014-01-19T06:39:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T13:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=21524"},"modified":"2014-01-19T06:39:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T13:39:19","slug":"a-new-northern-harrier-behavior-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/19\/a-new-northern-harrier-behavior-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Northern Harrier Behavior (for me)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harriers have been a common subject for me over the years so I don’t often notice something new about them.<\/p>\n

In full flight most raptors tuck their feet up against the base of their tail (largely to reduce drag, I’m sure)\u00a0but immediately after take-off their feet and legs are usually still extended below and behind them until they gain airspeed.\u00a0 In\u00a0flight shots\u00a0one can usually tell if the\u00a0 bird is in full flight or has just taken off by the position of the feet and legs (everything else being equal, full flight\u00a0shots are generally much more difficult than take-off shots).\u00a0 In past posts I’ve mentioned that harriers can be an exception to that “rule” – when they’re hunting “low and slow” and very close to the ground they often hang their long legs below their bodies when they’re in full flight but have little airspeed.<\/p>\n

But over the last year or so I’ve noticed another situation where harriers momentarily hang their feet low even though they haven’t recently taken off or been hunting low and slow.\u00a0 The following three photos illustrate my point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0In late November of this year I was watching this harrier hunt the Farmington phrags as it came generally in my direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It was flying at a moderate speed and you’ll notice that in both images its feet are tucked fairly tightly against the body.\u00a0 But as it got closer to me it apparently decided that it was getting too close to that big gray truck with all the clicking noises coming from those two big\u00a0“eyes” pointing at it through the windows so it…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

put on a burst of speed as it quartered away and as it did so its legs came down.\u00a0 So here’s a\u00a0harrier\u00a0in full flight that hasn’t just taken off and isn’t hunting low and slow but its legs and feet\u00a0are still down.\u00a0 In the distant past I’d likely have interpreted this as a recent take-off shot and I’d have been wrong.<\/p>\n

Unlike other hawks, harriers often rely heavily on auditory cues as they hunt\u00a0(thus their facial disc – absent in other hawks)\u00a0which is why they’re known for hunting low and slow over the ground.\u00a0 I suspect that other hawks might also drop their legs as they accelerate from an initial near-stall flight speed.\u00a0 It’s just that they don’t do it very often.<\/p>\n

I’m far from a raptor expert but I\u00a0am a bird photographer with a strong interest in behavior and I do my level best to interpret what I observe.\u00a0 It’s possible\u00a0I’ve gone astray\u00a0on this one\u00a0so\u00a0I’d be\u00a0very receptive to any other opinions.<\/p>\n

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

Harriers have been a common subject for me over the years so I don’t often notice something new about them. Recently I did and the following three photos illustrate my point. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21527,"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":[334,395,341],"tags":[1838,86,607,146,890,878,234,605],"class_list":["post-21524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-northern-harriers","tag-auditory-cues","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-facial-disc","tag-flight","tag-hearing","tag-leg-position","tag-northern-harrier","tag-take-off"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/northern-harrier-4846-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5Ba","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21524","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=21524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}