{"id":35458,"date":"2015-11-29T05:54:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T12:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35458"},"modified":"2015-11-29T08:51:41","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T15:51:41","slug":"male-american-kestrel-a-champion-poser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/29\/male-american-kestrel-a-champion-poser\/","title":{"rendered":"Male American Kestrel – A Champion Poser"},"content":{"rendered":"

This male American Kestrel was such an enthusiastic\u00a0poser that he performed for me for over six minutes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I found him just over a month ago atop Goose Egg Island at Farmington Bay MBR. At first he was wary of me but he soon settled down enough to enjoy his morning stretching routine.<\/p>\n

These aren’t great images. The setting is cluttered (many of these\u00a0photos are cropped vertically to avoid some of that clutter) and the bird was partly side-lit. But\u00a0I thought the large\u00a0variety of poses from a single bird in a relatively short time held some interest.<\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

He began his routine with a right wing stretch, though a branch on that side prevented the full extension of that wing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then he moved to the other side and stretched his left wing as he fanned his tail sideways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

After that he assumed this\u00a0position with his right foot held up, out and clenched. This seems to be a traditional pose with many raptors though I’m not sure why they do it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next came a symmetrical tail-spread. The right wing is beginning to come out…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

and down.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then he raised his left foot, fanned his tail to his left again and began to raise\u00a0both wings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

As his tail straightened out behind him\u00a0his wings came up into this pose that shows off the alulae so well. I posted this image recently to demonstrate those “bastard wings”.<\/p>\n

At this point the little falcon spotted prey on the side of the hill and took off after it.<\/p>\n

Addendum: Notice that in the image before this one the alulae are not visible but in this one they are, even though the wings are bent at about the same angle. This makes me think that birds actually have physical control over the alulae instead of them just reacting to air currents. I’ve read in the literature that there’s some question about whether or not they have actual control.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The prey turned out to be a late-season grasshopper and he landed with it on top of a nearby kestrel box. After he consumed the grasshopper he surprised me by…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

landing at the entrance of the nest box. There were flies buzzing around (one is on the right side of the box) but he didn’t pay them any attention.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then he actually entered the box and snooped around inside for a while. I have no idea why he’d be interested in a nest box in late October but he definitely was.<\/p>\n

When he was about to leave the nest box another flying insect was buzzing around him and he paid lots of attention to this one, apparently because it appeared (when I cropped in on it) to be a stinging insect and he wanted to avoid being stung. I got about a half-dozen images of the insect flying in a near-circle around the kestrel and his gaze followed it every instant it was there (unlike the flies which he ignored). I’m pretty sure most birds recognize stinging insects.<\/p>\n

I tried to get this bird in flight as it took off but I cut off his head. Par for the course…<\/p>\n

I wish I’d been closer to this falcon while it was in the tree and that the light angle had been better with less clutter in the setting but he performed so well and for\u00a0so long\u00a0for me\u00a0that I\u00a0thought he deserved his 15 minutes of fame and decided to feature him on today’s blog post.<\/p>\n

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

This male American Kestrel was such an enthusiastic poser that he performed for me for over six minutes.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35461,"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":[340,334],"tags":[953,2750,2751,131,1008,824,211,1492,256,2752,511],"class_list":["post-35458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","tag-alula","tag-ameriican-kestrel","tag-bastard-wings","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-grasshopper","tag-male","tag-nest-box","tag-prey","tag-stinging-insects","tag-stretching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/american-kestrel-1199-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9dU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35458","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=35458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}