{"id":27300,"date":"2014-10-16T06:17:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T12:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=27300"},"modified":"2014-10-16T07:41:45","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T13:41:45","slug":"northern-harriers-playing-with-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/16\/northern-harriers-playing-with-toys\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harriers Playing With Toys"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent post I documented “play” in Northern Harriers.\u00a0 Two days ago I photographed two of them playing – with each other and with “toys”.<\/p>\n

Note: These birds were far away from me so these images have been heavily cropped and the detail is not good.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

These two harriers seemed to be having a blast with each other as they skirmished playfully in the updrafts at the top of a hill on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

Their aerial maneuvers were fun to watch and though their postures may occasionally appear aggressive I had the very strong sense that this was not a dispute.\u00a0 They appeared to be simply having fun.\u00a0 Even though some of these images have only blue sky as background both birds were relatively close to the ground for the entire 5 minutes I spent photographing them.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

Occasionally they would fly down the side of the hill only inches from the ground (this image is an unusually heavy crop, even for this post…)<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

But usually their maneuvers occurred…<\/p>\n

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close to the rabbitbrush on the top of the hill.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

About two minutes into my session with them the flavor of their play behavior took a turn as one of the harriers picked up what I believe to be a buffalo chip (dried bison poop).<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

When the other bird approached the chip was dropped (deliberately, I believe).<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

And as it fell…<\/p>\n

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both\u00a0harriers plummeted down after it.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

Almost immediately one\u00a0of them retrieved the chip…<\/p>\n

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and eventually\u00a0dropped it once again.<\/p>\n

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Then both birds took a spin down the hill before…<\/p>\n

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one\u00a0of them\u00a0returned to the top of the hill and picked up\u00a0another chip…<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

which was dropped as soon as the other bird approached.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

A few moments later yet\u00a0another chip was picked up and played with in the air (this time it’s smaller and more difficult to see – the bird on the left has it).\u00a0 Some of the dynamics between these two harriers were really interesting to speculate about.\u00a0 For example, there were times when the bird carrying the chip was chasing the other one rather than vice versa.<\/p>\n

I really wish I’d been closer to the action while I was photographing these\u00a0harriers but I keep reminding myself that if I had it would have been much more difficult to keep both birds in the frame and get them each sharp.\u00a0 Even though the image quality is not good I reveled in watching this delightful behavior through my lens.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: There may be some disagreement regarding my use of the terms “play” and “toy”\u00a0in describing these behaviors.\u00a0 But researchers have long noted behaviors that they label as play in a variety of bird species\u00a0(including Northern Harriers)\u00a0and to my mind if they’re playing with an inanimate object it seems reasonable to describe that object as a toy.\u00a0 If you believe otherwise please excuse my anthropomorphism..<\/em><\/p>\n

Sorry, but I ran out of time for image techs.\u00a0 Most of these shots were taken at or close to: 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent post I documented “play” in Northern Harriers. Two days ago I photographed two of them playing – with each other and with “toys”.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27307,"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":[3,334,395,341],"tags":[1934,31,86,234,2268,2267],"class_list":["post-27300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-northern-harriers","tag-aggressive-display","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-northern-harrier","tag-playing","tag-toy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/northern-harrier-9079-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-76k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27300","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=27300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}