![\"red-tailed](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-0423-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis was my first experience photographing a\u00a0hawk chick passing a pellet. A week ago today I photographed a family of Red-tailed Hawks at a nest in a small Montana town. I was waiting\u00a0for the return of one of the parents to the nest and had removed my teleconverter from my lens in order to avoid clipping landing shots so these images are large crops but the behavior is clearly documented.<\/p>\n
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At the beginning of the retching process it’s sometimes difficult to tell if the bird is yawning or about to\u00a0throw up a pellet and that was the case here. My typical response to such situations is to fire away and see what I get rather than take a chance and miss a pellet being passed because it often happens quickly.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-0429-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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This time it was a pellet and in this image you can see it beginning to appear\u00a0at the back of the throat.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-0431-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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Here I caught the pellet about half exposed but I missed it as it dropped.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-0433-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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But it landed ingloriously\u00a0on the back of one of the chick’s two sleeping siblings and can be clearly seen there. The chick who passed it seemed mildly interested in it for a few moments and then turned away.<\/p>\n
At one point one of the chicks picked up an old\u00a0pellet from the floor of the nest and\u00a0tossed it over the side but I missed those shots.<\/p>\n
I’m no expert on\u00a0the biology of raptor pellets but I was\u00a0mildly surprised to see this behavior in chicks so young. As far as I could tell from watching them\u00a0feed, the parents were still\u00a0tearing\u00a0up their food (largely voles) and giving it to them in small\u00a0pieces so I don’t believe the chicks were consuming bones (though I could be wrong about that). I suspect these pellets were primarily composed of rodent fur.<\/p>\n
I’m also curious about the age at which this behavior typically begins in diurnal birds of prey but my attempt at researching\u00a0the subject\u00a0didn’t turn anything up. Any insight from readers would be appreciated.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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This was my first experience photographing a hawk chick passing a pellet.<\/p>\n