{"id":44076,"date":"2016-12-06T05:43:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T12:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=44076"},"modified":"2016-12-06T05:43:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T12:43:44","slug":"american-kestrel-struggling-with-wet-sticky-pipit-feathers-in-the-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/06\/american-kestrel-struggling-with-wet-sticky-pipit-feathers-in-the-snow\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel Struggling With Wet, Sticky Pipit Feathers In The Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

First let me set the stage for what’s going on here.<\/p>\n

This photo was taken several years ago on a snowy and foggy morning at Farmington Bay. It wasn’t particularly cold so the snow was wet and that caused significant problems for this feisty little female kestrel as she tried to enjoy her breakfast. Because of the dismal conditions for photography the image may not have universal appeal but that’s ok. I find it interesting and even amusing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-6508-ron-dudley\"1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I found her on a rusty old pipe and trying very hard to partially de-feather an American Pipit before eating it but the wet conditions were confounding her. When she’d pull out a beak-full of feathers they would stick to her bill en masse. She repeatedly tried to shake them off her face\u00a0but they were so clingy they stuck like glue.<\/p>\n

So as a last resort she used her right foot to scrape them off her bill and even though many of the feathers then stuck to her foot the strategy worked pretty well. Here we see several feathers flying through the air after she dislodged them. Her foot isn’t very sharp because\u00a0at this shutter speed it’s moving too fast to freeze the action.<\/p>\n

Typically I’d delete most photos taken in conditions like this but I think this one shows interesting behavior and even the personality of the bird so I thought I’d share.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

First let me set the stage for what’s going on here.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44077,"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":[340,334,2782,392],"tags":[28,1789,1174,131,256,286],"class_list":["post-44076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-american-kestrel","tag-american-pipit","tag-eating","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-prey","tag-snow"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/american-kestrel-6508-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-bsU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44076","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=44076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}