{"id":74525,"date":"2019-08-15T05:35:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T11:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=74525"},"modified":"2019-08-15T07:08:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T13:08:57","slug":"red-fox-smiling-hunting-and-pouncing-on-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/15\/red-fox-smiling-hunting-and-pouncing-on-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Fox “Smiling”, Hunting And Pouncing On Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe, just maybe, foxes can’t really smile but they sure as hell can jump. Yesterday in the mountains this young one proved it.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, 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

Relative to “his” position I was on an elevated road so even though I was close I think that made him feel safe so he showed absolutely no concern with my presence. When he eventually did look back at me I swear he was smiling but I’m sure I only had that impression because that’s the look I used to get from my dog when he seemed happy and wanted to play.<\/p>\n

But moments after I snapped this photo his demeanor changed dramatically.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/9, ISO 800, 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

After he took about four steps forward (note the changing position of the rock in the background in these first photos) things got real serious real fast.<\/p>\n

He’d either heard or seen something directly in front of him and he was now in full-blown hunting mode. I could see his ears changing the direction they were pointed as they honed in like radar on what I suspect was either a vole or a ground squirrel in the tall grasses directly in front of him (although the potential prey could have been just about anything).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/9, ISO 800, 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

He crouched to spring on the prey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/9, ISO 800, 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

The beginning of the pounce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/9, ISO 800, 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

All that tension in his body released like a spring and he really stretched out as he launched toward the prey. Even though I planned on this eventuality by leaving as much room to the left as possible I was both happy and lucky to keep all of him in frame at this point in the jump. I was and continue to be surprised and impressed by how long his body stretched out. This is one lithe and finely-tuned athlete.<\/p>\n

When he landed in the tall grass he came up empty but it wasn’t for lack of trying. In the past I’ve photographed coyotes pouncing on prey but I’ve never captured a wild canid in a more athletic posture than this one.<\/p>\n

Like all of my images this one isn’t perfect but I’m very happy to have captured it. It made my day, actually.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Maybe, just maybe, foxes can’t really smile but they sure as hell can jump. Yesterday in the mountains this one proved it.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74530,"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":[13,1148],"tags":[178,1413,1105,256,262,311,1149],"class_list":["post-74525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mammals","category-red-foxes","tag-hunting","tag-jumping","tag-pounce","tag-prey","tag-red-fox","tag-utah-2","tag-vulpes-vulpes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/red-fox-7227-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-jo1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74525","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=74525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}