{"id":68759,"date":"2019-01-31T05:37:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T12:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=68759"},"modified":"2019-01-31T06:12:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T13:12:43","slug":"male-northern-harrier-stomping-on-a-vole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/31\/male-northern-harrier-stomping-on-a-vole\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Northern Harrier Stomping On A Vole"},"content":{"rendered":"

And in this context I do mean stomping.\u00a0First a brief explanation of the behavior, one I’ve seen multiple times with this species but have only rarely been able to photograph.<\/p>\n

In winter Harriers often hunt voles in thick vegetation after the grasses have been packed down by snow so when the snow recedes the voles scurry around beneath the flattened grasses but almost never on top of them (for obvious reasons). Harriers hunt voles partially by sight and partially by sound by flying very low over the grasses.<\/p>\n

When they see or hear a vole beneath them they pounce on it but there’s often packed grasses between their talons and the vole so they pounce again and again until the frightened vole in its panic allows them to get an actual grasp.<\/p>\n

I call the repeated pouncing “stomping” because in the field that’s what it looks like to me. I tend to call the initial attempt “pouncing’ and the repeated attempts “stomping” but in my narrative below feel free to substitute “pouncing” for “stomping” if you prefer it. Based on what I’ve seen either one works reasonably well.<\/p>\n

All photos are presented in the order they were taken.<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Three days ago at Farmington Bay WMA I saw this male harrier begin his pouncing\/stomping routine as I was driving down the road and still some distance from him. I didn’t want to miss the action as I was getting closer so in all of these photos except the last two I was firing my camera as I was driving slowly on the rough dirt road. Under these difficult circumstances relatively fast shutter speeds once again helped immensely with sharpness.<\/p>\n

I’ve had some real adventures while driving and shooting at the same time on Farmington’s dirt roads!<\/p>\n

Here the bird had already stomped a few times but he still didn’t have the vole in his talons so he…<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

stomped again. Repeatedly. He’d usually rise up to a height of a foot or two and then drop straight down stiff-legged on the vole beneath the grasses.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

This was a short hover as he was deciding precisely where to stomp.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

The end of a stomp. At this point he probably didn’t know for sure if he had the vole securely or not.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

He didn’t. The vole got away so he had to go after it again.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

Another stiff-legged stomp.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

A few seconds later he apparently thought he finally had the vole safely in his grasp so he folded his wings and began to relax a little. It seemed obvious to me that he really thought he finally had that little rascal.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

But somehow the little bugger got away again and this was his reaction.<\/p>\n

When he finally had the vole securely and permanently subdued he walked with it into the taller grasses so he could enjoy his meal in private.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

I had to move my pickup again to get even this much of a look at him as he was gulping down pieces of his hard-won meal.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, harriers are the only raptor species I’ve seen repeatedly perform this “stomping” behavior. I suspect it might be a function of their tendency to hunt extremely low over the terrain where they can use their facial disc to hear prey but not necessarily see it. So they often pounce on an imprecisely located sound instead of prey they can clearly see which results in extended stomping bouts before they can secure their victim.<\/p>\n

At least that’s my working theory.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

And in this context I do mean stomping. First a brief explanation of the behavior, one I’ve seen multiple times with this species but have only rarely been able to photograph.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68773,"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":[6,334,2782,392,341],"tags":[86,1008,746,4427,1315,211,234,4426,256,311,315],"class_list":["post-68759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-northern-harriers","tag-circus-cyaneus","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-gray-ghost","tag-hunt-by-sound","tag-hunting-technique","tag-male","tag-northern-harrier","tag-pouncing","tag-prey","tag-utah-2","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/northern-harrier-1802c-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-hT1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68759","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=68759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}