{"id":50109,"date":"2017-07-20T05:12:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T11:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=50109"},"modified":"2017-07-20T05:12:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T11:12:12","slug":"my-first-idaho-northern-harrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/20\/my-first-idaho-northern-harrier\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Idaho Northern Harrier"},"content":{"rendered":"

And it was even a “Gray Ghost”.<\/p>\n

I photograph very few harriers in the summer months because around here at least these elusive birds are much more approachable when it’s cold. And since all of my camping trips up north are in the warmer months I don’t believe I’ve ever been able to get decent photos of a harrier in Idaho.<\/p>\n

Until last week.<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 800, 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

I was cruising “Old 91” which used to be the\u00a0major north south highway in the area (near the MT\/ID border, now largely gravel, unused, abandoned and\u00a0replaced by Interstate 15) when this male Northern Harrier landed on a fencepost very close to me (especially for a harrier). It’s my theory that this bird was\u00a0acclimated to vehicles because of all the traffic on the nearby freeway.<\/p>\n

He was actually hunting from the fencepost which in my experience is unusual for harriers (they nearly always hunt on the wing). At one point he dove on prey almost directly beneath the post and when he failed to catch anything he returned to an adjacent post to hunt some more.<\/p>\n

I like this perched shot quite a lot because of the good detail, nice light angle and the similar colors of the bird and some of the background elements. And it’s a Gray Ghost which I don’t get every day.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 800, 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

I didn’t get a great angle when he took off but he gave me a good look at his face and eye which saved the day. I do wish I’d had more shutter speed to get the wings sharper.<\/p>\n

For me driving Old 91 brings back many fond and ancient memories. When I was a kid in the early 50’s my family traveled that highway in a 1952 Ford\u00a0many times on\u00a0our trips between Montana and California and I still remember some of the landmarks (bridges, ravines etc.).<\/p>\n

To photograph an elusive male harrier up close along a stretch of the same old road and almost within sight of some of those landmarks made this bird a special one\u00a0for me.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

And it was even a “Gray Ghost”.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50111,"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":[334,341],"tags":[86,746,3466,2032,3465,211,220,234,3464],"class_list":["post-50109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-northern-harriers","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-gray-ghost","tag-hunting-from-a-fence-post","tag-idaho","tag-interstate-15","tag-male","tag-montana-2","tag-northern-harrier","tag-old-highway-91"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/northern-harrier-6939-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-d2d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50109","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=50109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}