{"id":38486,"date":"2016-03-31T05:39:30","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T11:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=38486"},"modified":"2016-03-31T08:50:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T14:50:28","slug":"a-merlin-acting-a-little-silly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/31\/a-merlin-acting-a-little-silly\/","title":{"rendered":"A Merlin Acting A Little Silly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often see this pose\u00a0from raptors and wonder if it has a “purpose”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"merlin<\/p>\n

1\/3200, 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<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this Merlin just over six months ago in southwest Montana and\u00a0I believe it to be a female of the prairie subspecies (Falco columbarius richardsonii). Typical of the species she was noticeably more approachable than her slightly smaller cousins the American Kestrels that were common in the area. I was able to photograph her several times during this camping trip but I usually didn’t have a very good light angle on her.<\/p>\n

This is a leg\u00a0pose that I often see from buteos and falcons when they’re perched and relaxed but I’m clueless as to why they do it and most other birds don’t seem to.\u00a0Occasionally it’s a\u00a0prelude to grooming but in my experience it usually isn’t.\u00a0To me it always looks just a little bit silly (but then so do I in some of the contortions I get into when photographing birds…).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"merlin<\/p>\n

1\/3200, 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

She held the pose, with minor variations, for quite a while (I took many photos of it) and I really don’t think she\u00a0had any intention of grooming that foot or leg when she initiated it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"merlin<\/p>\n

1\/3200, 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

But some time later she did begin to groom her upper leg.<\/p>\n

Usually when I see this pose from a raptor there is no grooming involved.\u00a0They just seem to enjoy raising a leg into an awkward-looking position\u00a0and clenching their “fist”. It’s a behavior I probably see most often in Red-tailed Hawks but then I\u00a0encounter a lot<\/em> of red-tails.<\/p>\n

As you can see from my camera settings I was prepared for this little falcon to take off but she had other things in mind. Truth be told I often prefer it that way because there’s just something so very special about watching a relaxed raptor up close through my lens. That intimacy with wildness can’t be beat.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

I often see this pose from raptors and wonder if it has a “purpose”.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38487,"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":[334,2221,395,1493,360],"tags":[2909,2674,2908,1228,220],"class_list":["post-38486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-merlin-diurnal-raptors","category-miscellaneous","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","tag-closed-fist","tag-falco-columbarius-richardsonii","tag-foot-pose","tag-merlin","tag-montana-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/merlin-2469-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-a0K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38486","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=38486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}