{"id":40892,"date":"2016-07-21T06:11:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T12:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=40892"},"modified":"2016-07-21T09:01:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T15:01:16","slug":"a-prairie-falcon-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/21\/a-prairie-falcon-bonanza\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prairie Falcon Bonanza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week in Montana’s Centennial Valley I witnessed a Prairie Falcon phenomenon that was completely unexpected. In fact I’d go as far as to say it blew me away –\u00a0to the jaw-dropping point.<\/p>\n

Sadly I wasn’t able to get any great photos of any of the falcons, at least in part because I was having focusing issues with my camera\u00a0but I did get a few documentary shots of individual birds and I hope to vividly describe my experience with them. This post is more about that experience than it is the images.<\/p>\n

During my week in the valley and vicinity I\u00a0drove parts of\u00a0the North Road three times. That dirt\u00a0road is very long, very remote and birds are usually scarce there\u00a0but because of its remoteness Golden Eagles are always a possibility and they were a big part of the draw for me.<\/p>\n

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\"prairie1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

But it was Prairie Falcons that stole the show.<\/p>\n

The first time I drove\u00a0the road\u00a0we saw about ten of them. But when I did it again a couple of days later their numbers in the same area had literally exploded – they seemed to be almost everywhere. They were usually in small groups of 2-5 birds, typically perched on fence posts in front of me as I approached. They always lifted off just before I got within camera range and then they would play-fight in the air or circle around behind me and land on the fences again. Occasionally one or more of them would fly in close as they apparently investigated my pickup. They were a mix of adult and juvenile birds but most seemed to be juveniles.<\/p>\n

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\"prairie1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s difficult to accurately\u00a0estimate the total number of\u00a0falcons we saw because we obviously\u00a0experienced some of them more than once as they hopscotched around us. But when it was all over we guessed that we had seen between 40 and\u00a050 individual Prairie Falcons!<\/em> (maybe even more)\u00a0within about an hour along that approximately 7-8 mile section of the dirt road. I hesitate to report numbers like that because Prairie Falcons are\u00a0usually uncommon, solitary\u00a0birds and folks might wonder what I was smoking that morning. But I saw what I saw.<\/p>\n

We were so fascinated by what we experienced and so intrigued by the possibilities of getting better images of the falcons that the following morning we decided to visit\u00a0what I was now calling\u00a0“Prairie Falcon Alley” a third time.\u00a0What a difference 24 hours can make! This time we only saw a handful of falcons along the same stretch of road.<\/p>\n

When I\u00a0arrived home I was determined to research this incredible Prairie Falcon numbers phenomenon and see if I could find an explanation. All I was able to come up with was the following from Birds of North America Online:<\/p>\n