{"id":39571,"date":"2016-05-17T05:55:19","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T11:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39571"},"modified":"2016-05-17T05:55:19","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T11:55:19","slug":"rough-legged-hawk-by-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/17\/rough-legged-hawk-by-request\/","title":{"rendered":"Rough-legged Hawk, By Request"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I posted a single photo of this beautiful hawk. Some folks were so enthralled with the bird that they asked to see more so this morning I’m complying with that request.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent 18 minutes with this\u00a0hawk at the marina on Antelope Island back in the fall of 2011. The bird spent most of its time preening in some wonderful light so I was able to capture a wide variety of interesting poses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many birds use this technique to groom the difficult to reach feathers on their head. There are times when I’m photographing birds that I wish my neck were this flexible. I was lucky to get any light in the eye during this maneuver, even though it appears that the nictitating membrane may be partially closed.<\/p>\n

I have no idea where that little twig on top of the tail came from – this is the only image where I remember seeing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the tail feathers were wet so the hawk often kept its tail spread to encourage drying,\u00a0even when it was working over plumage in other areas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like this droopy-winged posture as the bird was about to reach under its\u00a0left wing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here it’s “re-zipping” the hooks on\u00a0the barbules of its ragged tail feathers\u00a0(I’ve described the process and defined the terms involved here<\/a> if you didn’t see it and have the interest). This image and the next one demonstrate well how effective the process is. Notice how ragged the feathers are on the right side of the tail as compared to the left side. That’s because the hawk has been working over the feathers on that side but hasn’t yet reached those on the right. Re-zipping those hooks makes a big difference.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bird really has to stretch when it gets to the end of one of those feathers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here the hawk was about to work over its belly feathers.<\/p>\n

I’ve always said that for my money the Rough-legged Hawk may be the most handsome of all North American buteos. Admittedly they have some stiff competition but I can’t think of another species that whups them in that arena.<\/p>\n

Opinions may vary of course…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Recently I posted a single photo of this beautiful hawk. Some folks were so enthralled with the bird that they asked to see more so this morning I’m complying with that request.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39574,"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":[3,334,358],"tags":[31,2778,534,168,2967,255,269],"class_list":["post-39571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-rough-legged-hawks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-barbules","tag-buteo-lagopus","tag-grooming","tag-hooks","tag-preening","tag-rough-legged-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/rough-legged-hawk-6631-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39571","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=39571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}