{"id":51668,"date":"2017-09-15T06:42:23","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T12:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=51668"},"modified":"2017-09-15T07:17:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T13:17:20","slug":"a-couple-of-hawks-separated-by-species-and-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/15\/a-couple-of-hawks-separated-by-species-and-time\/","title":{"rendered":"A Couple Of Hawks Separated By Species And Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s no common theme here other than both birds being hawks so I guess\u00a0this post is a mini-potpourri but I always think it’s interesting to compare raptor species.<\/p>\n

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

I photographed this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk with prey\u00a0almost exactly three years ago (9\/18\/14) near Farmington Bay WMA.\u00a0The prey is a vole and the bird is nervous because there’s a paved road with traffic very close by. It very nearly flew off a couple of times but in the end, despite its already bulging crop, it consumed the vole in an interesting manner that was new to me at the time.<\/p>\n

In a very slick maneuver it held the hide down with one foot and neatly skinned the entire rodent by pulling it out of its skin and then\u00a0swallowed meat and bones in one gulp. I’ll spare you the gory photos but this still young bird had already developed surgical skills that could put some surgeons to shame. It then swallowed the hide and flew off immediately.<\/p>\n

The splotchy seed heads in the background are probably annoying to most viewers but for some reason I’ve always enjoyed this setting, probably just because it’s so different.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/7.1, 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 found this dark morph Swainson’s Hawk last month in Box Elder County. The photo was taken only minutes after sunrise in very soft, warm light so the background has significant pink tones. It’s subtle but I think there’s something interesting about this image too.<\/p>\n

There was a slight breeze blowing that would occasionally lift up its scapulars and reveal the much lighter\u00a0colors beneath. In this light it really got my attention every time those near-whites flashed at me\u00a0–\u00a0almost like a blinking electric sign. It made me think of the intricate way feathers are often colored and patterned. Feathers are truly one of the evolutionary marvels of nature.<\/p>\n

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I’m publishing later than usual and if\u00a0this post seems a bit disjointed I have an excuse (valid or not I’m using it). After a scorching hot\u00a0summer that extended into the middle of September our fall weather has finally arrived. It rained during the night and right now it’s 15\u00b0 colder than “normal”,\u00a0heavily overcast and snow in the mountains is forecast. In that kind of light I knew I wouldn’t be photographing birds this morning so I slept in to almost 5 AM!<\/p>\n

Decadent of me\u00a0I know but that extra hour (or more) of sleep felt so good…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

There’s no common theme here other than both birds being hawks so I guess this post is a mini-potpourri but I always think it’s interesting to compare raptor species.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51671,"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":[334,2782,392,450,645],"tags":[452,647,969,1008,3561,451,1857,954,3560,646,315],"class_list":["post-51668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-red-tailed-hawks","category-swainsons-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-buteo-swainsoni","tag-dark-morph","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-intricate-feather-colors-and-patterns","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-rodent","tag-scapulars","tag-skin-prey","tag-swainsons-hawk","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-6811b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-drm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51668","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=51668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}