![\"american-kestrel-2258-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/american-kestrel-2258-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou never know what you’ll see when you\u00a0put a lens on a bird.<\/p>\n
It’s my tradition to go shooting on Christmas morning but yesterday I was pushing the envelope because it was foggy and still snowing at Farmington – deplorable conditions for bird photography. It might be slightly hyperbolic to call it a “whiteout” but it was close.\u00a0It turns out that yesterday was our snowiest Christmas in 100 years but I gritted my teeth and braved the dicey early morning\u00a0drive to Davis County anyway.<\/p>\n
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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n I almost didn’t even put my lens on this male American Kestrel because of the fog, falling snow, poor light and bright background but I’m glad I did. He was scrunched down on his perch so I couldn’t see his bands until he took off.<\/p>\n I’ve been photographing kestrels at Farmington\u00a0(and elsewhere)\u00a0for almost 10 years but this is the first wild kestrel I’ve ever seen that had been banded (although I have photographed at least one escaped falconry kestrel with a band and jesses). And this one is loaded with jewelry – a typical-looking aluminum band on his left\u00a0leg and a much larger colored band on his right leg.<\/p>\n When I cropped in heavily on this photo I couldn’t read any numbers or letters on the smaller band and the colored band was turned so that the numbers\/letters were on\u00a0the back side so they were unreadable too. However…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a humongous\u00a0crop of\u00a0a previous image, taken just as the kestrel was opening his wings to take off, I could<\/em> read several letters on the colored band\u00a0– either an N and a B or an N and an E.<\/p>\n I suspect this bird was banded by my friends at\u00a0HawkWatch International as part of their ongoing and long-term American Kestrel Study (I believe\u00a0friend and blog follower Tana Hunter participates in that study). HW uses “unique alpha-numeric color bands because they can be seen from afar with binoculars and spotting scopes, eliminating the need to recapture a bird to know ‘who’ it is”. Their colored bands include only two large digits.<\/p>\n I tried to use HW’s online form to report this bird but it doesn’t allow for attached photos so later today I’ll report this bird to them, including photos, in another way. Banding organizations are pretty ingenious\u00a0at interpreting even incomplete data in identifying banded birds so I suspect this\u00a0info and these\u00a0photos\u00a0might be useful to them.<\/p>\n If\u00a0it turns out that this kestrel isn’t one of HW’s birds I’ll report it here<\/a> to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. I encourage everyone to report banded birds if any of the numbers\/letters can be read.<\/p>\n These days birds need all the help they can get.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You never know what you’ll see when you put a lens on a bird.<\/p>\n![\"american-kestrel-2257-huge-crop-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/american-kestrel-2257-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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