{"id":23195,"date":"2014-04-12T06:30:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T12:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23195"},"modified":"2014-04-12T06:30:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T12:30:04","slug":"the-gray-ghost-on-antelope-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/12\/the-gray-ghost-on-antelope-island\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gray Ghost On Antelope Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

The male Northern Harrier is called the “gray ghost” for good reason, particularly on Antelope Island. \u00a0Harriers tend to be elusive and shy\u00a0and the\u00a0adult male with its distinctive gray plumage makes up a relatively small proportion of the overall harrier population (females and juveniles of both sexes are brown instead of gray) so finding the gray ghost in the first place is your first challenge.\u00a0 Getting close enough for good\u00a0photos is the second.\u00a0 Both challenges are daunting.<\/p>\n

Photographing harriers on Antelope Island\u00a0State Park is\u00a0truly a dichotomy.\u00a0 When they hunt the causeway they can be relatively easy to get close to.\u00a0 The causeway is narrow so their hunting flights are restricted to the vicinity of the road and they seem to get used to the traffic.\u00a0 I have many photos of harriers\u00a0that were taken along the causeway.<\/p>\n

But photographing them on the vast expanses of the island proper is another story altogether.\u00a0 They\u00a0virtually always veer away from\u00a0vehicles or folks on foot before they’re close enough for photos (I swear they love to tease photographers!).\u00a0 In all the years I’ve been photographing at the park I can’t remember a single instance where I was able to get\u00a0quality photos of any harrier in flight in the island itself, much less of the gray ghost.<\/p>\n

Until yesterday.\u00a0 And I have Mia to thank for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We were photographing and scoping out other birds from the elevated road on the north side of the island when Mia said one word with urgency – “harrier!”.\u00a0 She had spotted this male coming up behind us (as usual we were shooting from my pickup)\u00a0as it hunted\u00a0the road edge.\u00a0 I’d have missed it altogether without her heads up.\u00a0 I quickly turned in my seat and was just barely able to get the angle on the bird through my window for long enough to fire off a quick burst.\u00a0 Two of those shots turned out\u00a0reasonably well given the relatively harsh light late in the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m quite sure that if I’d still been using my old lens (EF500mm f\/4L IS I) I’d have never been able to get focus lock on the bird fast enough to get these shots but my new version of that same lens (EF500mm f\/4L IS II) focuses faster and more accurately.\u00a0 My new lens saved the day.<\/p>\n

With significant assistance from Mia…<\/p>\n

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

The male Northern Harrier is called the “gray ghost” for good reason, particularly on Antelope Island<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23197,"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":[3,334,341],"tags":[31,1956,1955,539,86,746,211,234],"class_list":["post-23195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-northern-harriers","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-canon-ef500mm-f4l-is-i-usm-lens","tag-canon-ef500mm-f4l-is-ii-usm-lens","tag-causeway","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-gray-ghost","tag-male","tag-northern-harrier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/northern-harrier-3272-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-627","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23195","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=23195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}