{"id":36928,"date":"2016-01-25T06:18:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T13:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=36928"},"modified":"2016-01-25T06:39:29","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T13:39:29","slug":"a-barn-owl-and-a-red-tailed-hawk-in-blue-creek-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/25\/a-barn-owl-and-a-red-tailed-hawk-in-blue-creek-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"A Barn Owl And A Red-tailed Hawk In Blue Creek Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent trip to\u00a0northern Box Elder County produced some interesting raptors and uniquely challenging shooting conditions.<\/p>\n

One thing I’ve learned about Barn Owls over the years is that they love to roost in haystacks (commonly\u00a0composed of baled straw, not hay) so I always check them out for owls when I get the opportunity. There’s usually multiple nooks and crannies\u00a0between the bales that they can hide out in and one can often find them perched out in the open in the\u00a0early morning.<\/p>\n

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\"barn1\/800, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And sure enough, as I passed a stack of large\u00a0straw bales in Blue Creek Valley\u00a0on New Year’s morning this Barn Owl was perched among them. The problem was that it was tucked down in a shaded corner of the bales but surrounded by brightly lit hay which made it difficult for my active autofocus\u00a0point to lock on to the bird so many of my shots were slightly soft.<\/p>\n

Our winters are hard on Barn Owls and this sleepy bird was obviously conserving energy in a safe place on a very cold morning so I took a few shots from my pickup and then left it undisturbed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next I visited Blue Creek Springs where the water comes out of the ground at a constant, relatively warm temperature and often forms a small, elongated pond.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

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

As I drove down the road toward the spring outlet I encountered this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk perched in the snow next to the\u00a0water. The contrast of temperatures between the very cold air and the warm water (directly behind the bird)\u00a0produced misty vapor that washed over the hawk and made shooting conditions difficult. It was like\u00a0photographing in fog except that the thickness of the mist was changing constantly and very, very quickly as the slight breeze pushed it in waves over the bird. This was actually one of the clearest shots I got of the hawk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

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

Much of the time it was completely enshrouded in mist, to the point that I could barely make out its outline. This shot was taken only a second or two (maybe less)\u00a0after the previous one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

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

After several minutes the hawk\u00a0flew a few feet closer to the water (really more of a big hop than a flight)\u00a0and I got this fairly clear shot of it in-between clouds of mist. You can see some of that mist coming off the water’s surface to the left in the frame.<\/p>\n

At this point I thought the bird was about to fly off but it had something else in mind. I was unaware that there was now prey buried in the snow directly beneath and in front of its feet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

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

The hawk fed on the prey for a short while but the mist was so thick that I couldn’t tell for sure what it was, though I believe what we’re seeing here is a clump of frozen feathers being dropped. The bird wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about feeding (I suspect it was an old carcass and in the first shots I can see that its crop was bulging slightly)\u00a0and eventually…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

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

it took off over the water and gave me some butt shots as it did so.<\/p>\n

Largely because of the shooting conditions none of these images are great shots but these were interesting experiences with both birds so I decided to share.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

A recent trip to northern Box Elder County produced some interesting raptors and uniquely challenging shooting conditions.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36930,"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":[344,334,392,450],"tags":[45,2823,2825,689,452,148,2824,2826,256,451,286,309,311],"class_list":["post-36928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barn-owls","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-barn-owl","tag-blue-creek-springs","tag-blue-creek-valley","tag-box-elder-county","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-fog","tag-haystack","tag-mist","tag-prey","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-snow","tag-tyto-alba","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/red-tailed-hawk-4875-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9BC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36928","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=36928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}