{"id":55398,"date":"2018-01-04T05:41:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T12:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=55398"},"modified":"2018-01-04T05:50:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T12:50:06","slug":"american-kestrel-with-vole-prey-the-rest-of-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/04\/american-kestrel-with-vole-prey-the-rest-of-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel With Vole Prey – The Rest Of The Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’ll take 16 more images to tell the rest of the story that I started yesterday but I thought it was worth telling.<\/p>\n

Two days ago I took 441 photos of a cooperative male American Kestrel on three different perches\u00a0at Farmington Bay WMA during a 19 minute session. During most of that time he had a very large vole in his clutches\u00a0and that prey item\u00a0made the encounter particularly interesting. Due to time constraints I only posted a single photo of him yesterday but I promised that more would soon follow.<\/p>\n

This edition of\u00a0Feathered Photography\u00a0fulfills that pledge. All photos are presented in the order they were taken.<\/p>\n

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1\/1600, f\/7.1, 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

When I first encountered the kestrel he was perched on a wooden fence railing very close to the edge of the road but he was strongly sidelit so I had to significantly tweak this image during processing to make it look even this good. Immediately before this shot was taken the falcon administered the coup de gr\u00e2ce to the vole by biting its neck. Typically they use their “falcon tooth” (tomial tooth)<\/a> on their bill to sever the spinal cord and I assume that’s what happened here.<\/p>\n

I only had a few seconds with the bird on this perch because a very noisy vehicle came by on the washboardy dirt\u00a0road and scared him off.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 go far. He flew across a small creek next to the road and landed on this post with the vole. Thankfully he was in good light and still at a reasonable distance from me so I was able to get many interesting photos and he was perfectly comfortable with my presence at that distance.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

He started his meal at the head of the vole and I expected to spend a lot of time with him as he consumed the entire rodent. But looking at these early photos I can see that his crop was already bulging so that isn’t what happened.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

Several times he swallowed huge clumps of what appeared to be nothing but hair which made him look pretty silly. Perhaps he filled up mostly on “fluff”.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 got some protein in the mix even if he did have to work hard for it.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 it wasn’t long before he stopped eating. He picked up the (huge) vole in his beak and then almost immediately…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

transferred it to his left foot. And then he just stood there with his bloody beak and\u00a0looked first to his left and then to his right as if he was trying to make a decision as to which way to go when he took off with the vole. In retrospect I’m convinced that at this point his appetite was already\u00a0satiated and his intention was to cache the vole for a future meal.<\/p>\n

I believe he was trying to decide where to stash it.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

For some reason his first takeoff was aborted. I got three images as he\u00a0began to raise\u00a0his wings…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

and crouch to push off to his right…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 then he caught himself at the last millisecond (this is the image I posted yesterday) and…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

began to fold his wings again…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

and stayed on the perch to look around some more.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 eventually he did take off in the same direction as he attempted previously.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 dammit his left wing shaded his head…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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

in both shots I got of the takeoff. That was\u00a0a real\u00a0piss-me-off for me because I’d love to have been able to get nice takeoff and flight shots with the vole in his talons. Maybe next time.<\/p>\n

From here he flew to the side of Goose Egg Hill where he landed in the snow near a rock. I’m convinced he cached the vole near that rock because almost immediately…<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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

he landed in a tree on the side of the hill sans vole (yes, there’s\u00a0a shadow of a branch across his chest).<\/p>\n

That vole was (or will be) likely frozen solid when he retrieves it for another meal. I’ve photographed kestrels eating cached and frozen “volecicles” in the past and it’s hilarious to watch them attempt to\u00a0pull chunks off of their frozen rodent.<\/p>\n

I’d love to do it again.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

It’ll take 16 more images to tell the rest of the story that I started yesterday but I thought it was worth telling.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55404,"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":[340,334,2782,392],"tags":[3794,28,586,2223,2935,1174,131,133,1008,146,256,306,315,3795],"class_list":["post-55398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-aborted-takeoff","tag-american-kestrel","tag-bulging-crop","tag-cache-food","tag-coup-de-grace","tag-eating","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-falcon-tooth","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-flight","tag-prey","tag-tomial-tooth","tag-vole","tag-volecicle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/american-kestrrel-4104-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-epw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55398","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=55398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}