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<\/a><\/p>\nThe High Country News used this image of mine in a comprehensive article about Ferruginous Hawks (written by Maya L. Kapoor)\u00a0in their March 6 issue of the magazine. It’s a wonderfully written tribute to Ferruginous Hawks but it’s more than that – much more.\u00a0The article\u00a0discusses the rewards and challenges of using un-releasable raptors as education birds and\u00a0the value of\u00a0and controversies involved with rehab facilities that nurse injured wildlife back to health. If you’re a subscriber to the magazine (hard copy or online) I’d highly recommend that you read the thought-provoking article and if you’re one of\u00a0the many wildlife rehabbers\u00a0who follow\u00a0my blog I’d be interested in your thoughts about Kapoor’s take on raptor rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Maya, a 12 year old female Ferruginous Hawk who fell out of her nest in Montana\u00a0as a fledgling, is the\u00a0centerpiece of the article. Maya is now used as an education bird in the Raptor Free Flight program at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside of Tucson.<\/p>\n
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I received my complimentary copy of High Country News a few days ago and reading the article and seeing my image again\u00a0brought back a flood of memories of my experiences with Ferruginous Hawks, particularly in Montana (the nest above was in Beaverhead County, MT), so I thought I’d include two\u00a0more images taken at that nest back in June of 2013.<\/p>\n Here one of the adults is shading the chicks in the nest\u00a0from the hot sun (I took the\u00a0photo when one of them popped out for a moment to investigate its surroundings). This nest was absolutely massive – so much so that it reminded me of an eagle’s nest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I thought I’d “end” with an image that might make readers smile. Here one of the\u00a0chicks is forcefully ejecting feces far from the nest – a behavior common to many raptor species as a sanitation device to keep the nest clean. This photo was taken 10 days after the previous one – note how much the chick has grown in that relatively\u00a0short time.<\/p>\n High Country News is a highly respected publication that I suspect some of my readers subscribe to. This from Wikipedia:<\/p>\n If you’re a subscriber I highly recommend that you read the article. Here’s a link to it<\/a> but you must subscribe or sign up for a free trial before you can\u00a0see most of it.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A recent article in High Country News brought back many fond memories of photographing Ferruginous Hawks in Montana.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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