{"id":51366,"date":"2017-09-04T05:57:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=51366"},"modified":"2017-09-04T05:57:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:57:02","slug":"fledgling-red-tailed-hawk-playing-around-on-the-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/04\/fledgling-red-tailed-hawk-playing-around-on-the-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Fledgling Red-tailed Hawk Playing Around On The Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very young raptors do a lot of crazy stuff when they’re still trying to learn the ropes.<\/p>\n

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\"\"1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this very\u00a0recently fledged Red-tailed Hawk just over two months ago in northern Utah. Just prior to this the bird and one of its siblings had been feeding on something fairly large (possibly\u00a0a rabbit?) in the tall grass some distance from their nest in a nearby cliff and\u00a0when they were through this one decided to do some exploring. Notice that its crop is bulging hugely\u00a0from its recent meal.<\/p>\n

When it left the rabbit it alternately\u00a0walked and flew over to the base of the cliff where it had a very difficult time negotiating the rocks – thus the raised wings. This bird could now fly but its flight\u00a0skills were far from highly developed so when it decided to take off and land on the side of the cliff…<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

its chosen landing spot left a lot to be desired. It landed in a precarious spot on bare vertical rock where it could barely hold on without falling\u00a0off. It\u00a0stayed plastered against the side of the cliff for some time as it tried to decide what its next move would be.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Soon it took off, flew around a point in the cliff, and landed in a small rocky alcove –\u00a0a much more convenient place to perch. From here it could actually see its nest and I believe that’s where it’s looking in this photo. When it eventually took off again…<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I was able to get a couple of shots where I didn’t clip any body parts. Here it’s intending to land just a few feet from its previous perch so the cliff face is very close to the bird. I think the concentration of the hawk on “sticking” the landing is so intense it’s almost palpable in this photo.<\/p>\n

The adult hawks at this nest site\u00a0successfully raised three youngsters to fledging. Soon after these shots were taken all five birds dispersed and I haven’t seen any of them since then\u00a0that I know of. A three out of three success rate is exceptionally good, especially when you consider the dismal survival statistics of very young raptors.<\/p>\n

These adult hawks worked extremely hard at raising their three\u00a0chicks and I almost wish I could congratulate them personally\u00a0for a job well done.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Very young raptors do a lot of crazy stuff when they’re still trying to learn the ropes.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51367,"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":[334,391,450],"tags":[452,145,451,311],"class_list":["post-51366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-fledgling","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-1610-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-dmu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51366","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=51366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}