{"id":48282,"date":"2017-05-16T05:35:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T11:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=48282"},"modified":"2017-05-16T07:07:51","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T13:07:51","slug":"another-impressive-hunting-maneuver-by-a-short-eared-owl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/16\/another-impressive-hunting-maneuver-by-a-short-eared-owl\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Impressive Hunting Maneuver By A Short-eared Owl"},"content":{"rendered":"

This hunting maneuver may not be quite as\u00a0visually dramatic as the one featured in yesterday’s post<\/a> but it was\u00a0still a pretty neat trick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the same male Short-eared Owl as in yesterday’s post about one minute after\u00a0his first failed attempt at a vole.\u00a0He had\u00a0returned to another nearby metal post to try again. Here he’s scanning the middle distance for any sign of voles or other potential prey in the\u00a0tall grass between the road I was on and the pasture on the other side of the fence. The owl was obviously using both his highly tuned visual and\u00a0hearing capabilities to pick up the sight and\/or sound of rodents scurrying about in the long grass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Suddenly his attention was intensely focused on something in the grasses almost directly beneath him. I mean he was looking almost straight down! It’s my belief that he located this probable vole by sound rather than sight. The photographer in me immediately tried to\u00a0visualize precisely how the bird would make an attack at such an incredibly steep angle so I had the best chance to keep him in frame as he launched.<\/p>\n

Think about it. Voles are a\u00a0furtive and incredibly quick quarry for both raptors and photographers (after all these years I still don’t have a decent photo of one and believe me I’ve tried…). The attack had to be fast, under power and very steep. How could the owl do that from a standing start when his body was pointed upwards but his quarry was almost straight down? I actually wondered if he\u00a0might launch horizontally in another direction\u00a0to gain speed and then make a quick,\u00a0tight turn to come down on the vole.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But he didn’t. In a flash he pointed his body almost straight down and apparently used his right foot to grasp the tip of the post and push against it for speed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

From my other very blurry images taken after\u00a0this shot I can tell he only had time for a single power stroke of his wings before he had to flare up so he could present his talons to the vole. I think this\u00a0photo\u00a0dramatically illustrates the very steep angle the bird had to launch under power. Just dropping down using only the force of gravity wouldn’t have generated enough speed to give him a reasonable chance at the vole.<\/p>\n

And yes, I wish I hadn’t clipped that wing!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s where he landed. I include this shot in part to show you how close he was to the post he launched from and how steep the attack had to be (it’s a double post but one of them was longer than the other\u00a0as you can see in the previous image).<\/p>\n

This was another failed attempt – when he took off again his talons were empty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But two minutes later another attack on a vole from a different metal post was successful and I was able to get a single blurry image of him carrying the\u00a0little rodent\u00a0to his presumed nest and chicks\u00a0in the pasture on the other side of the road.<\/p>\n

Persistence usually pays off eventually and I was delighted to see the owl finally succeed.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

This hunting maneuver may not be quite as visually dramatic as the one featured in yesterday’s post but it was still a pretty neat trick.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48286,"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":false,"_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":[334,392,391,356],"tags":[35,146,1315,211,279,605,311,315],"class_list":["post-48282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","category-short-eared-owls","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-flight","tag-hunting-technique","tag-male","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-take-off","tag-utah-2","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/short-eared-owl-9306-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-cyK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48282","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=48282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}