{"id":40826,"date":"2016-07-16T04:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-07-16T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=40826"},"modified":"2016-07-15T16:23:05","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T22:23:05","slug":"eureka-a-northern-pygmy-owl-with-rodent-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/16\/eureka-a-northern-pygmy-owl-with-rodent-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Eureka! – A Northern Pygmy Owl With Rodent Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lifer of any species will make my week but a Northern Pygmy Owl with prey literally gave me buck fever I was so excited.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"40827\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/16\/eureka-a-northern-pygmy-owl-with-rodent-prey\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"720,900\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"10","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS 7D","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1468405024","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.005","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"northern pygmy owl 7624 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-40827\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"northern pygmy owl 7624 ron dudley\" width=\"720\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley-120x150.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley-400x500.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>1\/200, f\/10, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up, flashed or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I photographed this spectacular little owl two days ago in the mountains of Beaverhead County, MT and\u00a0very close to the\u00a0border between Montana and Idaho. The bird flew across the forest service road in front of me and landed very close to the road and high up in a tree. As is typical in those\u00a0habitats there were deep shadows and the setting was cluttered but for this bird I just don’t care…<\/p>\n<p>I didn’t even notice that it had prey until I saw the bird through my lens. It’s obviously a small rodent and I believe it to be a pocket gopher rather than a vole. This dainty-appearing little owl really tore into its meal and we can see a piece of rodent meat on the top of its bill as a result.<\/p>\n<p>These owls are incredibly small – they average the same weight as a Brewer’s Blackbird (2.2 oz). I can certainly see why they’re so difficult to find.<\/p>\n<p>Finding this bird helped to make up for all the frustrations of this camping trip – big time!<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p><em>PS – for those interested in the outcome of my mechanical problems with my pickup on this trip I’m actually back in the saddle again. It took a nervous drive to an Idaho Falls Ford dealer yesterday morning\u00a0and $431 for a new throttle body and motor. But the peace of mind sure was worth it!<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lifer of any species will make my week but a Northern Pygmy Owl with prey literally gave me buck fever I was so excited.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/16\/eureka-a-northern-pygmy-owl-with-rodent-prey\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40827,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[334,392,1493,3025],"tags":[779,3026,220,3024,3027,256,1857],"class_list":["post-40826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-northern-pygmy-owls","tag-beaverhead-county","tag-glaucidium-gnoma","tag-montana-2","tag-northern-pygmy-owl","tag-pocket-gopher","tag-prey","tag-rodent"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/northern-pygmy-owl-7624-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aCu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}