{"id":56384,"date":"2018-02-05T06:16:25","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T13:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=56384"},"modified":"2018-02-05T06:59:26","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T13:59:26","slug":"male-american-kestrel-acting-strangely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/05\/male-american-kestrel-acting-strangely\/","title":{"rendered":"Male American Kestrel Acting Strangely"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a change of heart about the likely cause of his\u00a0unusual behavior.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, 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 noticed his\u00a0quirky behavior while photographing him just over a year ago at Farmington Bay WMA. He was perched on this rock for several minutes and during the entire time\u00a0he never put his right foot down. Instead he always held it off the rock like this or tucked it into his belly feathers as kestrels often do when they’re relaxed and resting. At one point he flew off after prey (which he missed) and then returned to the rock but once again he kept his foot raised the entire time except for a brief moment when he turned on the perch to take off. On one occasion he picked at\u00a0that foot\u00a0with his beak but only for a few seconds before returning to this unusual foot-off-the-rock pose.<\/p>\n

That right foot is quite bloody and there’s even a spot of blood on the rock\u00a0but when I posted other photos of this bird last year (this one is new to my blog) it was my assumption that the source of the blood was a recent meal (most likely a vole).\u00a0At the time I considered the possibility that the foot was injured but rejected it for a variety of reasons (other than the raised foot his behavior seemed normal and I didn’t think birds would bleed this much from an injured foot since circulation in their feet is somewhat reduced as a heat-saving device).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When he flew off it revealed just how much blood there\u00a0was on that foot. There’s even some\u00a0blood on his left foot and it seemed more likely to me that so much blood would more likely come from prey as he was eating than it would from a typical injury.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I wondered if a\u00a0much closer look at his feet might\u00a0reveal an injury visually\u00a0so last night I cropped tightly on them but except for all the blood his feet and toe pads look normal to my untrained eye so I was still leaning in the direction of prey being the source of the blood rather than an injury.<\/p>\n

But the more I think about it the less sure I become. It seems to me that blood from prey on his feet wouldn’t prevent him\u00a0from standing on that foot – especially for such an extended\u00a0period of time. So last night I went back and re-read comments on my post from last year and noticed what Louise Shimmel said:<\/p>\n