here<\/a>.\u00a0 I know that to\u00a0be the case\u00a0because the same wing covert is askew in both birds (though it can’t be seen in this image).\u00a0 I’ve now been able to photograph this falcon on four different occasions in the last few weeks.\u00a0 What a treat!<\/p>\nRon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning was cold and\u00a0very windy out on Antelope Island and most of the birds seemed to have taken refuge from the freezing gale so as we left the island I figured it would be one of\u00a0 those relatively rare days when I had been photographically “skunked”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But as\u00a0is so often the case, the island had a pleasant last-minute surprise in store for me.\u00a0 \u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc This\u00a0Prairie Falcon had apparently killed\u00a0a duck (which I believe to be a Northern Shoveler) and was trying to defend it from two marauding ravens so the \u00a0falcon decided to haul\u00a0the shoveler\u00a0off to a more private and\u00a0secluded dining area.\u00a0 That turned out to be an unfortunate decision as very soon after this photo was taken a Bald Eagle flew in and forced the falcon to drop the duck.\u00a0 The eagle\u00a0flew down to the ice, retrieved the duck and nonchalantly\u00a0flew off with it. The wing and back of the duck are covered with snow\/ice crystals.\u00a0 The out of focus lighter “blobs” in the lower background are whitecaps on the Great Salt Lake.\u00a0 This falcon is the same bird I photographed\u00a0a little over a month ago and posted here.\u00a0 I know that to\u00a0be the case\u00a0because the same wing covert is askew in both birds (though it can’t be seen in this image).\u00a0 I’ve now been able to photograph this falcon on four different occasions in the last few weeks.\u00a0 What a treat! Ron<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,334,337,9,392,371],"tags":[31,538,146,160,254,256,311],"class_list":["post-3583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-diurnal-raptors","category-favorite-locations","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-prairie-falcons","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-falco-mexicanus","tag-flight","tag-great-salt-lake","tag-prairie-falcon","tag-prey","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-VN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583","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=3583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"prairie-falcon-2654\"](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/prairie-falcon-26541.jpg\" "\\"prairie-falcon-2654\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n