{"id":30677,"date":"2015-04-12T05:28:36","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T11:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=30677"},"modified":"2015-04-12T05:37:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T11:37:26","slug":"prairie-falcon-satiated-and-cleaning-up-after-a-big-meal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/12\/prairie-falcon-satiated-and-cleaning-up-after-a-big-meal\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Falcon – Satiated And Cleaning Up After A Big Meal"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a wild raptor with a more obviously\u00a0bulging crop than this Prairie Falcon.<\/p>\n

I’ve previously posted another\u00a0somewhat similar image\u00a0of this\u00a0falcon but this one is new to my blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie1\/1600, f\/9, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed the bird just over two years ago along the Antelope Island causeway as it rested and cleaned up after an obviously satisfying meal.\u00a0I suspect the prey had been a\u00a0duck as this bird (at least\u00a0I believe<\/em> it was the same falcon)\u00a0had become something of a duck specialist with a fascinating hunting technique that I’ve documented in a previous post<\/a>. Here the bird chose a spot in the warming sun to dry off, preen and clean its messy talons, thus the raised foot. I like the combination of wet and bloody feathers, bulging crop and that ominous and intimidating foot in silhouette.<\/p>\n

I generally find Prairie Falcons to be among the least approachable of raptors but this one had become acclimated to traffic along the causeway and wasn’t intimidated by vehicles in the least (I was shooting from my pickup). In order to get a clear view of\u00a0the falcon below the elevated roadway I had to approach it quite closely, which didn’t make it nervous at all.<\/p>\n

Even with my teleconverter removed I was quite tight on the bird – this image is full frame (not cropped). That tightness may not be ideal aesthetically but it allows for\u00a0wonderful detail.\u00a0Here\u00a0we even get a clear look at the tiny cone inside the nostril that allows falcons to continue to breathe efficiently at incredible speeds.<\/p>\n

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

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a wild raptor with a more obviously bulging crop than this Prairie Falcon.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30678,"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":[3,334,371],"tags":[31,586,539,538,1315,1037,254],"class_list":["post-30677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-prairie-falcons","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-bulging-crop","tag-causeway","tag-falco-mexicanus","tag-hunting-technique","tag-nostril-cone","tag-prairie-falcon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/prairie-falcon-8093-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7YN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30677","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=30677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}