![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/american-kestrel-6081-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSome parts of the meal can be less palatable than others.<\/p>\n
During my simply awful experience of swapping over to a new computer over the past few days I’ve run across some interesting older images that I haven’t previously posted. This is one of them (though I have posted other images of this bird).<\/p>\n
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1\/1000, f\/10, ISO 400, Canon 7D, Canon\u00a0<\/strong>EF 500mm f\/4l IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Back in December of 2009 I took 184 shots over 11 minutes of this male American Kestrel as he ate a mouse (not a vole in this case) at Farmington Bay WMA. It was a very cold morning as evidenced by the\u00a0frost on the post and on\u00a0the background vegetation. At times of temperature stress like this\u00a0it’s my belief that some raptors\u00a0occasionally consume parts of their prey that they might otherwise reject when energy isn’t at such a premium and on this morning this kestrel was\u00a0determined to swallow that stiff,\u00a0frozen\u00a0tail.<\/p>\n But it wasn’t easy. Based on the time stamps on my images it took him at least\u00a0two minutes to get it down and keep it down after he had plucked it from the carcass\u00a0(you can see where the tail had been attached to the mouse, it resembles a white letter “C”). Early in the process he swallowed it to the point that\u00a0the long tail disappeared entirely down\u00a0his throat but he choked on it so he\u00a0brought it back up\u00a0and started over from the beginning. This image was taken on the second attempt to swallow it and this time he eventually succeeded.<\/p>\n I like the look of determination on his face as he tries to get it down.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some parts of the meal can be less palatable than others.<\/p>\n