1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 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>\nThis elevated rock face is perhaps 100 yards from the nest on a cliff out of frame to our right\u00a0and the male (on the right) was perched here when his mate landed near him with nesting material. Apparently she needed a break. As she flew in and landed she had the stick in her talons but she soon transferred it to her beak before taking off again and delivering it to\u00a0the nest.<\/p>\n
But after she\u00a0took flight again\u00a0the delivery wasn’t immediate. There was a breeze that morning so there were updrafts coming off the rock face and she couldn’t resist playing in them for a few moments.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-0673-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-0673-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 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>\nGiven her flight\u00a0posture here she looks like she might be about to land but the opposite was true.\u00a0With very little effort in the updraft she had just lifted off and for a few seconds\u00a0immediately after\u00a0she\u00a0kited in the rising breeze for a bit before eventually\u00a0delivering the stick. She was only a\u00a0few feet above her mate (barely out of frame at lower right)\u00a0for long enough that I was able to get quite a few photos of her with her wings outstretched and her tail widely flared as she kited in the wind. She kept her legs in the down position for longer than I expected her to.<\/p>\n
I had the distinct impression that she was hesitant to “get back to work” and was simply enjoying herself in the updraft.<\/p>\n
Looks like fun to me.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typically with Red-tailed Hawks both sexes contribute to nest-building and in this case it was the female\u2019s turn to carry a stick to the nest. However, this time it was a two-stage delivery.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58474,"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":[3984,137,146,578,231,451,311],"class_list":["post-58472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-carrying-nesting-material","tag-female","tag-flight","tag-kiting","tag-nesting-material","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-0673-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-fd6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58472","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=58472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-0642c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-0642c-ron-dudley\\"")
1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 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