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<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0Then the bird decided to take off from the post…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0but changed its mind at the last millisecond and put the brakes on.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0It almost toppled off the post…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0but was able to…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0recover.<\/p>\n
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![\"red](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-0951-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red")
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0When it finally did actually take off…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0wouldn’t you know it, I clipped a wing.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\nBut it very quickly circled around to land on another near-by post.\u00a0 I quickly pre-focused on that post and fired off a burst as the hawk came in but yes, I clipped a wing again.\u00a0 Drats!\u00a0 I still liked the somewhat \u00a0unusual look at the dorsal side of a landing raptor.<\/p>\n
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![\"red](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-0959-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red")
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\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0In the next image in the burst I managed to avoid clipping anything but the right wing obstructed the neck, though I do like aspects of the peek-a-boo pose.<\/p>\n
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![\"red](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-0097-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red")
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\u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\nAnd then this strange but delightful raptor gave me this tilted-head pose for several seconds.\u00a0 Perhaps it was using parallax on my pickup.\u00a0 I don’t know for sure but I loved the pose.<\/p>\n
Goofy bird!<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
Postscript: Some may wonder why I would include images with obvious flaws (clipped wings, part of head obstructed).\u00a0 It’s never been my intention with this blog to\u00a0only showcase strong images.\u00a0\u00a0Occasionally I like my readers to “be there” in the field with me\u00a0and to experience some of my frustrations along with any successes.\u00a0 At least that’s my rationale for doing so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first encountered this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk in Beaverhead County three weeks ago it was eating a vole on top of this fence post.\u00a0 Soon after it finished the rodent it began to act a little strange. \u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4 In these first few shots it may look like the hawk is simply shaking or “ruffling” its feathers but I’m convinced that wasn’t the case.\u00a0 I’ve seen many birds perform that feather maintenance activity but what was happening here looked quite different.\u00a0 I remember telling Mia while it was\u00a0occurring that it looked like the bird was “dancing” on top of the post. \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4 The hawk went through some strange gyrations and postures that were different from what you see with a simple “shake” and they lasted an unusually long time (I have many shots of the behavior).\u00a0 This tail-up posture, for example, is reminiscent of defecation but the bird didn’t defecate and the wing position isn’t what you would normally see during defecation anyway. \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4 The bird wasn’t shaking to get these unusual feather positions either\u00a0– instead it seemed to be deliberately and relatively slowly (compared to shaking)\u00a0erecting its feathers.\u00a0 I have 8 – 10 shots that are very similar to this one and they’re not all in sequence. \u00a0\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4 \u00a0Then the bird decided to take off from the post… \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4 \u00a0but…<\/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":[779,452,146,579,220,451,612],"class_list":["post-7503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-beaverhead-county","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-flight","tag-landing","tag-montana-2","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-unusual-behavior"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1X1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503","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=7503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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