{"id":27019,"date":"2014-10-05T06:26:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-05T12:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=27019"},"modified":"2014-10-05T06:26:07","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T12:26:07","slug":"the-evolution-of-a-nest-tree-over-three-summers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/05\/the-evolution-of-a-nest-tree-over-three-summers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution Of A Nest Tree Over Three Summers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This\u00a0lonely fir tree at the east end of Montana’s Centennial Valley\u00a0has had some interesting history over the last several years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1250, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The tree, near the eastern boundary of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, was the site of a Swainson’s Hawk nest in the summer of 2012.\u00a0 This image, taken on 8\/22\/12, shows the nest with two fairly recently fledged Swainson’s siblings.\u00a0 I had a grand time with this hawk family that summer so the following year I was looking forward to the possibility of repeating the experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"common<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/640, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To my surprise I found a clutch of four Common Raven chicks in the nest the following June (image taken 6\/5\/13).\u00a0 The nest had been refurbished and strengthened\u00a0(Swainson’s Hawks are known for building nests that are more flimsy and ragged than those of other buteos).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"common<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not particularly fussy when choosing my avian subjects so I was happy to photograph the ravens as the adults went about raising their family.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"common<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0This shot (one I’ve posted previously) shows one of the chicks presenting a fecal pellet from the cloaca to the parent.\u00a0 The adult then flew away with the pellet for disposal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"nest<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Almost exactly a month later (7\/2\/13) I returned to the nest tree in hopes of finding fledged raven chicks but was disappointed to see that the nest was gone.\u00a0 I have no idea what happened to it as I didn’t walk out to the tree from the road to investigate.\u00a0 It may have been blown down in a storm but I also worry that it was vandalized by humans since many folks don’t like ravens.\u00a0 I surely hope that’s not the case.<\/p>\n

I check on this tree during every trip I make to the valley (4-5 trips per summer) so\u00a0this past summer I\u00a0was curious to see if there would be another nest in the tree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"swainson's<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But there wasn’t (image taken 9\/8\/14).<\/p>\n

However, another family of Swainson’s Hawks (one adult and two young siblings) hung around the general area during our early September trip and their nest may have been nearby, though I never did see it.\u00a0 Occasionally, one of the young hawks would land on the old nest tree and they did it often enough that it made me wonder if they were somehow innately aware of the history of that tree with their species.\u00a0 I doubt\u00a0it but I must admit that the thought entered my mind and it did so\u00a0more than once.<\/p>\n

I also thought it was interesting to note the changes in the\u00a0tree from summer to summer involving shape, size, growth patterns and the presence or absence of cones.\u00a0 I wish I had\u00a0a more thorough\u00a0botany background so I could better interpret those changes.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

This lonely fir tree at the east end of Montana’s Centennial Valley has had some interesting history over the last several years.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27025,"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":[334,1531,8,1493,391,360,645],"tags":[647,555,93,96,2261,2260,220,228,263,646],"class_list":["post-27019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-common-ravens","category-ecology-and-environment","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-nesting-and-mating","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-swainsons-hawks","tag-buteo-swainsoni","tag-centennial-valley","tag-common-raven","tag-corvus-corax","tag-fecal-pellet","tag-fir-tree","tag-montana-2","tag-nest","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/swainsons-hawk-and-nest-tree-4452-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-71N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27019","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=27019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}