{"id":29349,"date":"2015-02-04T06:25:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T13:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=29349"},"modified":"2015-02-04T08:10:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T15:10:50","slug":"raven-sneak-attack-on-a-golden-eagle-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/04\/raven-sneak-attack-on-a-golden-eagle-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Raven Sneak Attack On A Golden Eagle In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

It isn’t every day that I get to photograph an aerial attack by a raven on a Golden Eagle.<\/p>\n

In this instance I use the word “photograph” advisedly – for a variety of reasons these images are of mediocre quality and some of them aren’t\u00a0particularly sharp so I had to process some of\u00a0them to\u00a0within an inch of their lives to get them as presentable as they are.\u00a0But I enjoy seeing behaviors like this even when the photos are technically lacking.\u00a0I hope you agree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

Four days ago I was watching this Golden Eagle on Antelope Island through my lens as it was perched far away at the top of a large hill when it unexpectedly took off directly toward me.\u00a0 A Common Raven had been perched nearby in obvious disapproval of the presence of the eagle but I thought the corvid had remained behind when the eagle launched. It hadn’t.\u00a0I had already taken 13 shots of the eagle in flight\u00a0when I first spotted the raven fast approaching the eagle from behind through my lens. Needless to say I quickly fired off a long burst and hoped for some interesting interaction.<\/p>\n

At this point the eagle seems to be unaware of the approaching raven. If I remember my old World War II movies correctly, this is the classic approach position of one fighter aircraft\u00a0on another\u00a0to best prevent detection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

But the eagle is certainly aware of the raven\u00a0now. The raven was very\u00a0close to the eagle before it banked to its right…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

and squawked its displeasure…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

as it veered away and continued to…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"golden<\/p>\n

vocalize as it did so.<\/p>\n

This action occurred very quickly – based on the burst rate of my Canon 7D Mark II I’d estimate it only took about half a second.<\/p>\n

Ravens and Golden Eagles have an interesting relationship. Ravens will feed on carcasses killed by Golden Eagles and in studies they appear at half of all rabbits killed by them. In most situations ravens are extremely aggressive toward Goldens, except at food, and eagles are known to prey on raven\u00a0fledglings in the nest. More often than not when I see a Golden Eagle there are ravens nearby keeping an eye on them, apparently as both a potential source of food and a possible\u00a0threat.<\/p>\n

A complex relationship to be sure.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

It isn’t every day that I get to photograph an aerial attack by a raven on a Golden Eagle.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29352,"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":[3,334,1531,394,642],"tags":[31,1405,2348,93,153,440,311],"class_list":["post-29349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-common-ravens","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-golden-eagles","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-attack","tag-canon-7d-mark-ii","tag-common-raven","tag-golden-eagle","tag-mobbing","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/golden-eagle-9977-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7Dn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29349","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=29349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}