{"id":39722,"date":"2016-05-23T04:35:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T10:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39722"},"modified":"2016-05-23T04:35:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T10:35:34","slug":"northern-harriers-transferring-food-in-mid-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/23\/northern-harriers-transferring-food-in-mid-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harriers Transferring Food In Mid-air"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been trying to photograph this behavior for years.<\/p>\n

Only the female Northern Harrier\u00a0incubates eggs. The male provides all of her food during that time and virtually all of it for her and the chicks until the\u00a0youngsters are about\u00a0two weeks old.\u00a0Instead of bringing\u00a0it to her at the nest the food is often\u00a0transferred from male to female in the air. The male flies overhead with the food item and then the female flies up to meet him where the transfer occurs.<\/p>\n

I was able to photograph that behavior yesterday morning\u00a0on Antelope Island. The birds were far away so I had to crop the images drastically and the image quality is mediocre at best but the behavior is clearly seen so I thought some might enjoy seeing the images.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

Here the darker\u00a0female at bottom has left the nest and is approaching the food-bearing male. The food item, in the right foot of the male, appears to be an already half-eaten vole so it’s quite small.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

As they approached each other the male prepared to drop the vole.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

Drop\u00a0made. Now it’s the responsibility of the female to catch it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

She maneuvered to approach it…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

reached out with her right foot…\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This image is softer than the rest and I’m not sure why.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

and successfully snagged it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then the male presumably went back to more hunting and the female returned to the nest.<\/p>\n

I’ve been trying to photograph this food exchange for almost 9 years now and I’ve come quite close to success a few times but something has always gone wrong. This time most things came together except for one – distance from subjects. One day I hope to get quality photographs of the behavior from a closer distance\u00a0but for now this series will have to do.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

I’ve been trying to photograph this behavior for years.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39726,"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":[3,334,392,391,341],"tags":[86,2972,230,234,256,315],"class_list":["post-39722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","category-northern-harriers","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-food-transfer-in-flight","tag-nesting","tag-northern-harrier","tag-prey","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/northern-harrier-1868-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-akG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39722","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=39722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}