{"id":6717,"date":"2012-07-24T18:38:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T00:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=6717"},"modified":"2012-09-02T12:58:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T18:58:38","slug":"finally-a-cooperative-ferruginous-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/24\/finally-a-cooperative-ferruginous-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally – A Cooperative Ferruginous Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had to go all the way to Montana to find a cooperative Ferruginous Hawk but three days ago we found one in Beaverhead County.\u00a0 My files on this species are woefully lacking\u00a0and it’s not because I haven’t worked hard at getting acceptable images of them.\u00a0 I’ve made many trips to the island mountain ranges of western Utah specifically to photograph this handsome raptor but until this last week I could count the number of nice images I had\u00a0of them on one hand.\u00a0 They just won’t let me approach them.<\/p>\n

This single bird made the enitre trip well worth it.\u00a0 The Ferruginous Hawk has been described as “the largest, most powerful and grandest of our buteos – a truly regal bird”.\u00a0 In fact the scientific name for the species is Buteo regalis<\/em> – a fitting descriptor of this hawk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous-hawk-0121-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

We found this bird on our way home,\u00a0beside a long and isolated dirt road\u00a0and I was even pulling my camping trailer which didn’t spook it.\u00a0 This first shot\u00a0was taken from some distance because I assumed it would fly off when we got closer.\u00a0 It didn’t.\u00a0 Here it looks like the bird is upset with us for coming along but I think it was reacting to another Ferruginous Hawk that was in the vicinity (though we didn’t yet know it was there).\u00a0 This road has quite a bit of traffic (horse trailers, logging trucks etc)\u00a0considering how isolated it is and since\u00a0these birds are “sit and wait hunters”\u00a0I believe\u00a0this bird is accustomed to the traffic and\u00a0was reacting to the other hawk rather than to us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0It soon let us get\u00a0closer, which surprised me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

It gave us a few varying poses as it was scanning the area for prey and was obviously unconcerned with our presence – even with me jockeying the position of my pickup and trailer for a good light angle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u00a0switched position on the post\u00a0to scan in a new direction and very quickly saw potential prey in the grasses in that direction so it…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0took off and chased something around in the grasses for a few seconds but came up empty-taloned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0It then flew back to another post very near by (I don’t think I even had to move my pickup to shoot the hawk on the new perch).\u00a0 It called a few times – I assume to the other hawk that appeared about this time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I was a little too close when it took off to get an ideal composition\u00a0(even without my tc attached)\u00a0but at least I managed not to clip anything as it launched.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Then it circled around and passed overhead as if it wanted to give us some more photographic opportunities before it went on its way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ferruginous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

I wish I’d had my tc attached for the last few flight shots but there just wasn’t time to put it back on.<\/p>\n

The perches weren’t natural but I’ve always been a fan of rustic settings and just\u00a0to get close to a Ferruginous Hawk in good light was a huge milestone for me.\u00a0 This was one of those sessions with a bird that I won’t soon forget.\u00a0 Some of you may have noticed that in my excitement I forgot to adjust my settings for the situation in the first few shots.\u00a0 \u00a01\/6400 sec at ISO 640 for a static shot\u00a0– sheesh!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

We had to go all the way to Montana to find a cooperative Ferruginous Hawk but three days ago we found one in Beaverhead County.\u00a0 My files on this species are woefully lacking\u00a0and it’s not because I haven’t worked hard at getting acceptable images of them.\u00a0 I’ve made many trips to the island mountain ranges of western Utah specifically to photograph this handsome raptor but until this last week I could count the number of nice images I had\u00a0of them on one hand.\u00a0 They just won’t let me approach them. This single bird made the enitre trip well worth it.\u00a0 The Ferruginous Hawk has been described as “the largest, most powerful and grandest of our buteos – a truly regal bird”.\u00a0 In fact the scientific name for the species is Buteo regalis – a fitting descriptor of this hawk.   \u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc We found this bird on our way home,\u00a0beside a long and isolated dirt road\u00a0and I was even pulling my camping trailer which didn’t spook it.\u00a0 This first shot\u00a0was taken from some distance because I assumed it would fly off when we got closer.\u00a0 It didn’t.\u00a0 Here it looks like the bird is upset with us for coming along but I think it was reacting to another Ferruginous Hawk that was in the vicinity (though we didn’t yet know it was there).\u00a0 This road has quite a bit of traffic (horse trailers, logging trucks etc)\u00a0considering how isolated it is and since\u00a0these birds are “sit and wait hunters”\u00a0I believe\u00a0this…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,377],"tags":[779,577,531,138,146,220],"class_list":["post-6717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-ferruginous-hawks","tag-beaverhead-county","tag-buteo","tag-buteo-regalis","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-flight","tag-montana-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1Kl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6717","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=6717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}