{"id":45509,"date":"2017-01-29T06:19:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T13:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=45509"},"modified":"2017-01-29T07:53:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T14:53:39","slug":"peregrine-falcon-in-a-snowy-setting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/29\/peregrine-falcon-in-a-snowy-setting\/","title":{"rendered":"Peregrine Falcon In A Snowy Setting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I was delighted to photograph my first Peregrine Falcon of the year.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/8, ISO 250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I like the natural rock perch and the snowy setting but the lighting was a challenge. The bird was side-lit but because of the snow on the ground the images weren’t as contrasty as they could have been. Reflected light from the snow lit up many of the shaded parts of the bird\u00a0reasonably well.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/8, ISO 200, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This bird was unusually “sticky” for a peregrine and I suspect the cold had a lot to do with that\u00a0because\u00a0it was only 8\u00b0 F. when these photos were taken. I spent quite a while with it but in that entire time the only thing the bird moved was its head. So when another car pulled up much too close to the falcon for comfort\u00a0I figured it might spook so I tried to be ready for takeoff shots. I had already removed my teleconverter in preparation for that possibility.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/8, ISO 200, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Falcons typically launch\u00a0very quickly and it’s\u00a0extremely easy to completely\u00a0miss the takeoff so I tensely kept my finger on the half-depressed shutter button and watched for any sign of movement. When I saw the right foot begin to come down from its warm resting place in the belly feathers I fired off a quick burst and hoped for the best.<\/p>\n

That foot movement was the beginning of a quick, fluid and continuous motion to take off.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/8, ISO 200, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

By the time my shutter clicked again (1\/10 sec later) the falcon had twisted on\u00a0the perch and started to raise its wings. Here the tail hasn’t even had time to follow the body so it’s still hidden behind the rump and wing.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 200, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

And in the next shot the falcon had already turned its head away in the direction it intended to fly. Because the tail and the head are out of the plane of focus they’re both soft. But I was still glad to get this shot for two reasons – it confirmed that the bird actually did have a tail \ud83d\ude42 and it also confirmed that there were no bands or jesses on the falcon. Twice before I’ve photographed Peregrine Falcons with falconry paraphernalia still on their legs. Those birds had obviously escaped from their “owners”.<\/p>\n

As hard as I tried\u00a0my strategy for attempting to get a spectacular take off shot or two\u00a0didn’t work out\u00a0this time.<\/p>\n

But next time it just might…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Two days ago I was delighted to photograph my first Peregrine Falcon of the year.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45513,"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":true,"_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":[6,334,1004,582],"tags":[583,847,146,541,286,605],"class_list":["post-45509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-falconry-2","category-peregrine-falcons","tag-falco-peregrinus","tag-falconry","tag-flight","tag-peregrine-falcon","tag-snow","tag-take-off"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/peregrine-falcon-7303-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-bQ1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45509","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=45509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}