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<\/a><\/p>\nFor several years breeding\u00a0Burrowing Owls had a burrow at the base of the same\u00a0gate and when their youngsters fledged they would use the posts of the gate for flight and landing practice. I photographed\u00a0these two fledgling siblings on the gate 3 years ago on 6\/22\/15. I spent many summer mornings photographing young owls at this gate over several years and it brings back fond memories, despite the wire.<\/p>\n
I drive by\u00a0the gate regularly and because of my history with it\u00a0I always carefully scope it for birds and\u00a03 days ago it paid off with the Short-eared Owl.<\/p>\n
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Some blog readers may remember this large rock I’ve photographed several Swainson’s Hawks using as a perch. Coming from the south I can’t see the rock from the road because I have to negotiate a curve and a hill before it abruptly comes into view but I’ve learned to drive very slowly just in case there’s a bird on it.<\/p>\n
This is the female of a mated pair that regularly perched on the rock two years ago.<\/p>\n
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And this is the male, her mate, the following morning. As you can\u00a0see from their relaxed stretching poses they both felt quite at home here.<\/p>\n
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So much at home that they mated on it.<\/p>\n
On one morning I’ll never forget I topped the hill and rounded the\u00a0curve going a little too fast and flushed a beautiful\u00a0Golden Eagle off of this rock. I learned my lesson – drive extra slowly coming over that hill!<\/p>\n
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This\u00a0ancient snag was a favorite perch for American Kestrels at Farmington Bay WMA for years, perhaps for generations. It was always sidelit in the mornings but with the shaded Wasatch Mountains in the background that could make for some pretty dramatic images. I took many photos of this male\u00a0as\u00a0he stretched and preened but I probably have hundreds of photos of other\u00a0kestrels on the same perch taken over many years. In fact, I don’t believe I have photos of any species other than kestrels on this perch.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0some years ago the snag was suddenly no longer there. It was so old I suspect it just toppled over and disappeared in the vegetation where I couldn’t see it.<\/p>\n
I still miss it and I’ll bet the kestrels do too.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Raptors in particular are known for repeatedly using the same perch, sometimes over a period of years. And sometimes they’re used by more than one raptor species so it behooves the bird photographer to check them out regularly. If raptors like’m, I like’m – even when they’re less than photogenic.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60183,"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":[340,334,365,391,356,645],"tags":[28,2455,62,1008,4054,646],"class_list":["post-60182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-burrowing-owls","category-nesting-and-mating","category-short-eared-owls","category-swainsons-hawks","tag-american-kestrel","tag-barbed-wire-fence","tag-burrowing-owl","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-favorite-perches","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/american-kestrel-4935-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-fEG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60182","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=60182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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