{"id":56659,"date":"2018-02-16T05:36:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T12:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=56659"},"modified":"2018-02-16T05:36:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T12:36:43","slug":"male-american-kestrels-getting-some-tail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/16\/male-american-kestrels-getting-some-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"Male American Kestrels Getting Some Tail"},"content":{"rendered":"

And there’s more than one way to get it done.<\/p>\n

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1\/1000, f\/10, ISO 400, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In my experience kestrels\u00a0often discard rodent tails but when it’s very cold and food is at a premium it’s another matter. In this older photo from my archives this male at Farmington\u00a0was working hard to get one of\u00a0those tails\u00a0down the hatch but it wasn’t easy. He got it mostly down before he had to bring it back up again and start over. As you can see from the frost on the post and the\u00a0vegetation in the background it was very cold that morning and he was\u00a0determined to get every last warming calorie he could. I have many photos of the process but he kept his head down the entire time and this is one of the few shots that includes any light in the eye.<\/p>\n

And yes, he eventually succeeded in swallowing it whole. Based on the length of the tail I believe the rodent was a mouse instead of a vole. I do see the occasional mouse at Farmington.<\/p>\n

But there’s more than one way to get some tail at Farmington.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, 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

Five days ago the banded female on the left was in a romantic mood and repeatedly stuck her tail in the face of her mate in an obvious effort to encourage his amorous instincts. He\u00a0wasn’t interested at the moment, as indicated by his aloof reaction.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, 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

At one point he flew down and entered the nest box, disappearing inside for a few moments.<\/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 kept trying to get flight shots of both birds as they entered and exited the box but they kept turning in the wrong direction to provide any light in the eye. Still, it was good practice for me and a test of my aging reflexes because\u00a0kestrels are so\u00a0very fast.<\/p>\n

Much of the bird news around here is very discouraging this year but seeing kestrels pairing up for the last\u00a0few weeks\u00a0gives me some hope.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – This female was banded by HawkWatch International and she has been reported multiple times.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

And there’s more than one way to get it done.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56661,"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":[340,334,2782,392,391],"tags":[28,1624,3864,131,1045,1432,223,256,1857,315],"class_list":["post-56659","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","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-american-kestrel","tag-banded","tag-eating-rodent-tails","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-farmington","tag-hawkwatch-international","tag-mouse","tag-prey","tag-rodent","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/american-kestrel-3007-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-eJR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56659","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=56659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}