{"id":39878,"date":"2016-05-31T05:48:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T11:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39878"},"modified":"2016-05-31T05:48:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T11:48:45","slug":"harrier-takeoff-ive-never-seen-a-raptor-wing-twisted-into-such-a-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/31\/harrier-takeoff-ive-never-seen-a-raptor-wing-twisted-into-such-a-shape\/","title":{"rendered":"Harrier Takeoff – I’ve Never Seen A Raptor Wing Twisted Into Such A Shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birds and their feathers continue to surprise me with what they can do when they need to.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent some quality time yesterday morning with this very cooperative Northern Harrier as it was preening on a fence post in Box Elder County.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here it’s raising its foot in order\u00a0to scratch the right side of its face. The bird was very involved in its scratching and preening when suddenly…<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 248 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

its attention was drawn to some prey item it apparently heard scurrying around\u00a0in the tumbleweeds almost directly beneath the post. It watched and listened for some time as the prey (I\u00a0suspect it was a vole) moved from place to place.<\/p>\n

At this point I remember wondering how the harrier would make such a quick, tight turn if it took off\u00a0after the vole that was so close to the fence post\u00a0(and how I should prepare for it as a photographer). And take off it did. I only got one shot of the launch but in it I found something quite unexpected.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 248 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Look at the shape of that right wing. I didn’t think a wing could be twisted into\u00a0such a\u00a0shape – it almost reminds me of that ribbon candy we used to get at Christmas as kids.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 278 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The harrier did catch the prey but I was never able to positively identify it. This was the clearest look I got of the bird as it was consuming its meal beneath the post. After this shot I drove down the road and left the harrier to finish its meal in peace.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 248 mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back to that earlier image. A large crop of the takeoff shot gives us a better look at the twisted shape of\u00a0that right wing. Personally I’ve never seen anything like it from a raptor at takeoff. I suspect it somehow allowed the very quick aerial maneuver required to attack the vole so near the launching point – the takeoff was extremely quick and powered and\u00a0not a relatively slow, gentle launch.<\/p>\n

All this may be esoteric enough to\u00a0be of interest only\u00a0to me since\u00a0I do\u00a0sometimes tend to\u00a0dwell\u00a0on minutia. But every time I look at this photo I wonder “How did the bird do<\/em> that?”<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: The forecast for\u00a0up north finally calls for an extended period of good weather and light so you guessed it – Montana is calling me. I leave this morning for a camping\/photo trip to my beloved home state. While I’m gone I’ll likely have intermittent and unreliable internet access but I’ll try to continue to post daily. I’ll get the email versions of any comments\u00a0made but responding to them is often difficult or impossible. Wish me luck, I hope I find some interesting\u00a0birds!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Birds and their feathers continue to surprise me with what they can do when they need to.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39881,"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":[334,392,341],"tags":[689,86,2977,178,234,255,256,2979,2738,311,2978],"class_list":["post-39878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-northern-harriers","tag-box-elder-county","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-feather-shape","tag-hunting","tag-northern-harrier","tag-preening","tag-prey","tag-ribbon-candy","tag-takeoff","tag-utah-2","tag-wing-shape"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/northern-harrier-1483-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-anc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878","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=39878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156406,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878\/revisions\/156406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}