{"id":35489,"date":"2015-11-30T05:34:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T12:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35489"},"modified":"2015-11-30T05:39:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T12:39:32","slug":"northern-harrier-hunting-goose-egg-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/northern-harrier-hunting-goose-egg-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harrier Hunting Goose Egg Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Harriers often hunt the perimeter of Goose Egg Island (really only a hill and\u00a0no longer an\u00a0island)\u00a0at Farmington Bay MBA, particularly its northern side along the creek.\u00a0Occasionally I lay in wait for them,\u00a0using the hill to shield my pickup from their\u00a0view\u00a0so that they’re already in range by the time they really know I’m there. Sometimes\u00a0that strategy\u00a0actually works.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/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 photographed this harrier a week ago as it was hunting the north side of the hill. I’m sure this one knew I was there all along but it kept coming in, presumably because it didn’t want to abandon its hunting run over that vole-rich area. When it got too close to me for comfort it had two choices – veer off to its\u00a0left or go over the hill to its right. It chose the latter…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/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

and that choice put some trees at the top of the hill in my backgrounds just as the birds turn put better\u00a0light under its wings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/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 in the next frame the clutter of branches\u00a0back there became even more pronounced. I’m not sure which I prefer – “boring” old blue sky or a busy background like this. At least there are no branches in front of the bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/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

I did\u00a0 get a couple of shots after the harrier cleared the trees and this is one of them.<\/p>\n

I’ll admit that I have harrier images I like a little\u00a0better than these but the species is such a difficult subject I’m always happy to get sharp shots of them in flight to add to my files. If the cursed clouds would ever clear out around here\u00a0maybe I’d be able to pad my collection even more.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Northern Harriers often hunt the perimeter of Goose Egg Island (really only a hill and no longer an island) at Farmington Bay MBA, particularly its northern side along the creek.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35497,"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":[334,341],"tags":[86,1008,234],"class_list":["post-35489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-northern-harriers","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-northern-harrier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/northern-harrier-5676b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9ep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35489","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=35489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}