{"id":65098,"date":"2018-10-29T05:12:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T11:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=65098"},"modified":"2018-10-29T05:29:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T11:29:24","slug":"american-kestrel-struggling-to-feed-on-a-large-vole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/29\/american-kestrel-struggling-to-feed-on-a-large-vole\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel Struggling To Feed On A Large Vole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just holding onto your lunch isn’t always easy when you’re 20′ in the air and the prey is relatively large.<\/p>\n<p>I photographed this male American Kestrel feeding on a vole at Farmington Bay WMA three years ago. I never posted these images before in part\u00a0because the\u00a0branch over the bird’s head really annoys me but when I found them again last night I decided to overlook the damned thing because I like the behavior.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"65099\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/29\/american-kestrel-struggling-to-feed-on-a-large-vole\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"720,900\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"8","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS 7D","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1321371424","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"500","shutter_speed":"0.000625","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"american kestrel 4568 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-65099 size-full\" title=\"american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley-120x150.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4568-ron-dudley-400x500.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He’d already been feeding on the vole for some time when this photo was taken but he was often struggling to keep it from falling to the ground.\u00a0This particular\u00a0vole is\u00a0fairly large and\u00a0awkward prey for the small falcon to manipulate\u00a0and\u00a0in this\u00a0shot he’d\u00a0picked it up off the branch to reposition it.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously his bill is a mess of blood and flesh.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"65100\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/29\/american-kestrel-struggling-to-feed-on-a-large-vole\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,720\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"8","credit":"RON DUDLEY","camera":"Canon EOS 7D","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1321371430","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"500","shutter_speed":"0.0008","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"american kestrel 4573 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley-300x240.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-65100 size-full\" title=\"american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley-150x120.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley-400x320.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Believe me the backside of the rodent is in a lot better shape than its front\u00a0so I’ll spare you those images due to their graphic nature. After this shot was taken he took off with the vole, presumably to find a larger and flatter\u00a0table to\u00a0dine from.<\/p>\n<p>FYI – there are many species of voles and several local mouse species but voles can\u00a0generally be\u00a0distinguished from most mice by their stubby tails. I only remember a single instance of seeing a kestrel with a mouse at Farmington\u00a0but I’ve seen them with a <em>lot<\/em> of voles.<\/p>\n<p>However on one occasion I also photographed a Barn Owl at Farmington\u00a0with a mouse so there are at least some mice in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just holding onto your lunch isn’t always easy when you’re 20′ in the air and the prey is relatively large.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/29\/american-kestrel-struggling-to-feed-on-a-large-vole\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65100,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[340,334,2782,392],"tags":[28,4272,131,1008,223,256,1857,315],"class_list":["post-65098","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","tag-american-kestrel","tag-difference-between-a-mouse-and-a-vole","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-mouse","tag-prey","tag-rodent","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/american-kestrel-4573-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-gVY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}