![](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/peregrine-falcon-1960-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"peregrine-falcon-1960-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI photographed this Peregrine Falcon ten days ago along the Antelope Island causeway. The perch, some rusty old pipe on the north side of the causeway, is a familiar one to aficionados of the island – it’s a favorite perch of Common Ravens\u00a0and the occasional raptor. However it’s a long ways from the road\/causeway\u00a0for bird photography so the first 11 images in this post have been cropped to exactly 45% of the original image (the last one is cropped to 49%).<\/p>\n
I don’t know the sex of this bird but for the sake of convenience I’m going to refer to it as a male in this post. All images are presented in the order they were taken.<\/p>\n
I was far enough from him that my best hope was for\u00a0takeoff shots where the extended wings of the falcon would fill more of the frame. So I trained my lens on the bird and steeled myself for a long wait. This bird was comfortable!\u00a0 Here I caught him in a yawn as he stood on his left foot while his right one was tucked into his belly feathers in a very relaxed pose.<\/p>\n
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Soon he gave me a\u00a0leisurely wing, tail and leg stretch followed immediately after…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n by a bilateral wing lift. Resting raptors often stretch just prior to takeoff so I tensed myself for the launch and waited for it to happen. And waited and waited…<\/p>\n But he settled back down into the same resting pose and became a bump on a log (i.e.- pipe) once again. Occasionally he was actually sleeping\u00a0with his eyelids (not his nictitating membranes) closed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Five minutes later he stretched again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And one more time a full\u00a0four minutes after that.<\/p>\n But this time I had hope there’d be imminent takeoff because…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n he also stretched his left wing…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n which was followed by another wing lift. I tensed up again and readied myself for launch…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n but he returned to his “bump on a log” pose and pretty much maintained it for the next 14 minutes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only another bird photographer fully\u00a0understands the tension and strain involved in such a situation. At this\u00a0point I’d been squinting at the bird through my viewfinder and had my finger on the half-depressed shutter button for 33+ minutes waiting for him to take off. I had eyestrain and my right arm was at an awkward angle\u00a0so the muscles were cramping up but I knew if I relaxed even for a moment the falcon would choose that split-second to take off so I\u00a0persevered. A Peregrine Falcon in flight isn’t a shot I get every day!<\/p>\n Finally he turned on his perch to give me a side\u00a0view but only for a moment. He was actually in the process of…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n turning his back to me. I was very disappointed because it was now most likely that he’d take off away from me and all I’d get would be butt shots.<\/p>\n I can’t remember the exact sequence of events but somewhere in this timeframe a small group of ducks flew overhead from left to right (he was likely\u00a0watching them when this shot was taken). Fairly quickly after they passed he…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n took off after them and actually snagged one of them right\u00a0out of the air.<\/p>\n After so much\u00a0time with the falcon (a total of 42 minutes and 412 images)\u00a0I was very disappointed that this was the best shot I got of the takeoff. The bird is already past me and looking away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n