{"id":25014,"date":"2014-07-10T05:37:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T11:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25014"},"modified":"2014-07-10T05:37:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T11:37:20","slug":"shrike-sneak-attack-on-a-red-tailed-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/10\/shrike-sneak-attack-on-a-red-tailed-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Shrike Sneak-attack On A Red-tailed Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days ago we went back to the west desert to check up on the Red-tailed Hawk family that I’ve been posting about in recent weeks.\u00a0 Largely because of our Montana trip it had been two weeks since we’d been there so we were prepared for the\u00a0possibility that the three offspring would already be fledged and dispersed and apparently that was the case because the nest was empty and at first there were no hawks to be found\u00a0in the immediate vicinity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But on the way back\u00a0down the\u00a0canyon\u00a0we came upon a single Red-tailed Hawk and I believe it is one of the adults from the nest.\u00a0 It was perched in a juniper and side-lit so I mostly just watched it through my lens and as I did so my mind wandered to my recent\u00a0experience with a Red-tail that was attacked by a Swainson’s Hawk<\/a>, remembering how I’d missed getting the best shots possible because I wasn’t prepared and didn’t act quickly enough when the Swainson’s swooped in unexpectedly.\u00a0 As I thought about that encounter my shutter finger tightened on the button just in case.<\/p>\n

And believe it or not it was at that moment…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

that a Loggerhead Shrike with a chip on its shoulder swooped in out of nowhere to harass the hawk.\u00a0 Because I was ready for it I was able to get two shots with both birds in the frame.\u00a0 In this first one I don’t believe the hawk yet knows the shrike is there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But in the next frame in the burst the hawk has reacted by slightly\u00a0cowering and\u00a0ducking its head\u00a0(if you compare the two images you’ll see what I mean) as the shrike vocalizes its displeasure .\u00a0 Loggerhead Shrikes are\u00a0well-known for mobbing, physically attacking and chasing a long list of potential nest predators and the Red-tailed Hawk is high on that list.<\/p>\n

These aren’t great shots technically but as always I enjoyed the behaviors and I’d\u00a0have missed them entirely\u00a0if I hadn’t been thinking about screwing up the Red-tail\/Swainson’s\u00a0encounter.\u00a0 It’s a lesson that I continue to learn – be prepared for the unexpected!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Believe it or not it was at that moment that a Loggerhead Shrike with a chip on its shoulder swooped in out of nowhere to harass the hawk. Because I was ready for it I was able to get two shots with both birds in the frame. In this first one I don’t believe the hawk yet knows the shrike is there.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25016,"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":[334,394,346,450],"tags":[452,409,206,451,311,533],"class_list":["post-25014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-loggerhead-shrikes-shrikes-and-vireos","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-lanius-ludovicianus","tag-loggerhead-shrike","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-utah-2","tag-west-desert"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/red-tailed-hawk-3764-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6vs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25014","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=25014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}