{"id":2912,"date":"2011-10-07T12:58:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T18:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=2912"},"modified":"2011-10-07T12:58:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T18:58:21","slug":"american-kestrel-preening-and-stretching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/07\/american-kestrel-preening-and-stretching\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel, Preening and Stretching"},"content":{"rendered":"

This slightly wet and bedraggled (but still handsome) male kestrel was quite wary of me as I approached him on his favorite perch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-4799\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 500, EV +0.67\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

American Kestrels are notoriously difficult to get close to and several times he\u00a0nearly flew off as I\u00a0slowly worked myself within good shooting distance.\u00a0 But it had been a cold morning and these birds are more “sticky” in the chill so he allowed me a relatively close approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"american-kestrel-4854\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Soon after he became comfortable in my presence the warming sun came out (as you can tell by the difference in background in the first two images) and he began to preen.\u00a0 I got many interesting images of him working on his tail feathers but this one shows the eye best.\u00a0 For protection of their eyes\u00a0they\u00a0typically close them as they run a feather through their beak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-4935\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And then he began a long, slow stretch – first by fanning his tail…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-4948\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

and then stretching out his left wing downward.\u00a0 As you can see, they often stretch all three “limbs” at the same time – tail, wing and leg.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-4959\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33<\/em><\/p>\n

When it was over he fluffed up his feathers and held this position, with one foot up, for quite a while to enjoy the warmth of the sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have many photos of perched kestrels but I\u00a0don’t often get them stretching, since they only do so when they’re relaxed and it’s unusual for them to feel that way in close proximity to humans.\u00a0\u00a0 By the time I found this bird\u00a0the sun was high enough that the sidelight was a little harsh but overall I’m quite happy with the images.<\/p>\n

Ron\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

This slightly wet and bedraggled (but still handsome) male kestrel was quite wary of me as I approached him on his favorite perch.\u00a0\u00a0   \u00a01\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 500, EV +0.67\u00a0 American Kestrels are notoriously difficult to get close to and several times he\u00a0nearly flew off as I\u00a0slowly worked myself within good shooting distance.\u00a0 But it had been a cold morning and these birds are more “sticky” in the chill so he allowed me a relatively close approach.\u00a0   \u00a0 \u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0 \u00a0Soon after he became comfortable in my presence the warming sun came out (as you can tell by the difference in background in the first two images) and he began to preen.\u00a0 I got many interesting images of him working on his tail feathers but this one shows the eye best.\u00a0 For protection of their eyes\u00a0they\u00a0typically close them as they run a feather through their beak.     1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0 And then he began a long, slow stretch – first by fanning his tail…     1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33\u00a0 and then stretching out his left wing downward.\u00a0 As you can see, they often stretch all three “limbs” at the same time – tail, wing and leg.     \u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 640, EV +0.33 When it was over he fluffed up his feathers and held this position, with one foot up, for quite a while to enjoy the warmth of the sun.\u00a0 I have many photos of perched kestrels but I\u00a0don’t often get…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340,4,334,337,395],"tags":[28,131,132,191,255,511],"class_list":["post-2912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-diurnal-raptors","category-miscellaneous","tag-american-kestrel","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-falcon","tag-kestrel","tag-preening","tag-stretching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-KY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2912","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=2912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}