{"id":45386,"date":"2017-01-25T06:59:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T13:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=45386"},"modified":"2017-01-25T08:48:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T15:48:42","slug":"northern-harriers-not-seeing-eye-to-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/25\/northern-harriers-not-seeing-eye-to-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harriers Not Seeing Eye To Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m speaking figuratively in my title of course. Literally they were seeing exactly eye to eye.<\/p>\n

The winter of 2008 was a harsh one in northern Utah and Northern Harriers at Farmington competed intensely\u00a0for every morsel of available food. One February morning I photographed many different harriers over a period of several hours as they battled over a dead Mallard on the ice. Over the years I’ve posted a variety of photos from those sessions but these three are new to my blog.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/10, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This photo illustrates both the intensity of the competition and the reason for it – the Mallard directly\u00a0below the two harriers. I’ve never posted this shot in the past because we have to look closely to distinguish one bird from another and there’s not a face or an eye to be seen.<\/p>\n

The viewer has to imagine what’s actually going on\u00a0in the very limited space between the two birds, be\u00a0it clawing with talons, biting, wing slapping or a combination of the three.\u00a0And sometimes our imagination is even\u00a0more vivid than reality so I enjoy looking at this photo and imagining what I’d be seeing with a side view. Whatever it was it was obviously intense.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/10, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

64 minutes later I photographed these two harriers (presumably\u00a0different birds than those in the previous photo)\u00a0fighting over what was left of the duck. Their primary offensive weapons are their talons and those long legs\u00a0can and often do strike out at an opponent with lightning speed. The hawk on the left is obviously wary of\u00a0just such a strike. The duck is under the tail of the bird on the right.<\/p>\n