{"id":6830,"date":"2012-07-31T12:15:17","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T18:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=6830"},"modified":"2012-09-01T19:18:11","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T01:18:11","slug":"a-mated-pair-of-red-tailed-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/31\/a-mated-pair-of-red-tailed-hawks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mated Pair Of Red-tailed Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our recent trip to the Centennial Valley of sw Montana lasted 6 days.\u00a0 On the last morning, only an hour or so before we had to leave, we found these\u00a0cooperative\u00a0adult Red-tailed Hawks.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe our luck –\u00a0warm, early morning light coming from the right direction, a clean natural perch, an interesting and varying background with clouds and blue sky, they allowed us close to them for over 20 minutes and there were\u00a0two<\/em> of them!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

1\/800, f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When we first found them they were perched together.\u00a0 I strongly suspect they’re a mated pair (though I don’t know that unequivocally)\u00a0since they’re adults and many Red-tails stay paired year-round.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The two birds stayed together on the perch for almost 10 minutes as we photographed them and then one of them flew off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

The hawk left behind immediately decided to occupy the vacated perch…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

and did so for some time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0But the bird that flew off landed in a nearby conifer and immediately had to contend with a pair of\u00a0very aggressive and persistent American Kestrels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Soon the kestral-harrassed hawk returned, only to find its preferred perch already occupied.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There was some mild squabbling and posturing over who would occupy that perch…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

but the bickering was interrupted when a smaller bird of some kind began dive bombing them, as you can see from their reaction.\u00a0 I don’t know for sure what kind of bird it was because I never took my eye off the viewfinder so I wouldn’t miss a reaction shot but I suspect it was one of those kestrels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/400, f\/16, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

But soon the returning hawk pushed the issue and the darker bird flew off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It may have won the perch but peace and tranquility just wasn’t in the cards for this hawk as a\u00a0swallow began to repeatedly dive-bomb it.\u00a0 Such is the life of the buteos – almost constant harassment by smaller birds.<\/p>\n

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

Our recent trip to the Centennial Valley of sw Montana lasted 6 days.\u00a0 On the last morning, only an hour or so before we had to leave, we found these\u00a0cooperative\u00a0adult Red-tailed Hawks.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe our luck –\u00a0warm, early morning light coming from the right direction, a clean natural perch, an interesting and varying background with clouds and blue sky, they allowed us close to them for over 20 minutes and there were\u00a0two of them!   1\/800, f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0 When we first found them they were perched together.\u00a0 I strongly suspect they’re a mated pair (though I don’t know that unequivocally)\u00a0since they’re adults and many Red-tails stay paired year-round.     1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc \u00a0The two birds stayed together on the perch for almost 10 minutes as we photographed them and then one of them flew off.     1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc The hawk left behind immediately decided to occupy the vacated perch…     \u00a01\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc and did so for some time.     \u00a01\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0 \u00a0But the bird that flew off landed in a nearby conifer and immediately had to contend with a pair of\u00a0very aggressive and persistent American Kestrels.     \u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0 \u00a0Soon the kestral-harrassed hawk returned, only to find its preferred perch already occupied.     \u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4. 1.4 tc\u00a0 There was some…<\/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":[334,450],"tags":[24,779,452,555,220,263,451],"class_list":["post-6830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-adult","tag-beaverhead-county","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-centennial-valley","tag-montana-2","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1Ma","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830","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=6830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}