{"id":37694,"date":"2016-02-24T05:32:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T12:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37694"},"modified":"2016-02-24T05:56:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T12:56:17","slug":"a-harrier-teasing-me-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/24\/a-harrier-teasing-me-in-the-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"A Harrier Teasing Me In The Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes birds are cooperative when they aren’t…<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/1600, 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

Yesterday morning there was a quartering north wind along the Antelope Island causeway which slowed this Northern Harrier down as it came toward me along the north side of the road. Its slow flight and bravado as it approached me closely provided some excellent photo ops but they were mostly stymied by the consistent flight posture of the hawk in the wind.\u00a0The bird’s left wing nearly always hid or shaded the head and eye because it rarely flapped or raised its outstretched wings. Here the bird banked slightly which gave me a nice look at the lowered\u00a0left wing and at least some light on the face and eye.<\/p>\n

One distraction is the plant stem trailing from the left wing. What could cause it to stick to the smooth surfaces\u00a0of the middle of the wing like that?<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/1600, 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 answer is revealed in the very next image. The broken stem isn’t stuck to the wing, instead the harrier has a vole in its clutches and the little rodent has a literal death grip on the stem. The shadow on part of the face and the beak is a little annoying but at least there’s light on the eye.<\/p>\n

Both of these images illustrate one of the challenges of photographing harriers – that bright white rump patch. In these photos the patch is almost\u00a0directly facing the sun which makes it very bright with little detail. Those whites aren’t blown but they’re a little\u00a0brighter than I like them to be.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n