![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/northern-harrier-5475-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-5475-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nThis is one situation where I’ll allow one of my personal photographic\u00a0‘rules’ to be broken.<\/p>\n
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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 This male Northern Harrier was hunting voles low and slow as they often do and occasionally he’d hover briefly over potential prey, or at least almost come to a full\u00a0stop in the air,\u00a0as he’s doing here. When they do that they’re nearly always looking straight down which can make it very difficult for the photographer to get any light in the eye. And that’s what happened here.<\/p>\n Typically I don’t post images without a catch light or at least light in the eye but I make exceptions if it’s a behavioral shot and to me this hunting posture simply reeks of behavior. I know of no other hawk or falcon (including kestrels) that typically hovers over prey so close to\u00a0the ground – this bird was probably about 4′ above the low-growing\u00a0vegetation beneath him and often they\u00a0hover even lower.<\/p>\n Yes, I’d prefer to see more of that spectacular bright yellow eye\u00a0of the male harrier than we do here but given the behavior it isn’t surprising that I can’t. If I had to choose between this near-hovering\u00a0flight posture with no light in the eye and a more typical flight posture where we could see the eye better it would be a difficult decision for me to make (everything else being equal).<\/p>\n If I had my druthers I’d prefer to have both…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Late addendum: I’m adding the following photo in response to a request from Elmer Deloso in\u00a0the comments below. Elmer asked to see a photo of a hunting harrier that included the ground below it so he could see how low they often hunt. Here we can’t see the actual ground but we can see the short vegetation that grows from it.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is one situation where I’ll allow one of my personal photographic ‘rules’ to be broken.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/northern-harrier-1079-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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