![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/northern-harrier-9805-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-9805-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nI see this maneuver from Northern Harriers often and every time I’m awed by it.<\/p>\n
Without question I’ve spent more time over the years watching and photographing Northern Harriers than I have any other raptor. I’ve chosen my vanity license plate (HARRIER) for that very reason. But photographing this aerial hunting maneuver is incredibly difficult because they change direction and speed so very fast it’s almost impossible to keep them in frame, much less in focus.<\/p>\n
The following series of 3 photos is the best I’ve ever managed at documenting the maneuver. They were taken ten years ago (11\/17\/09) at Farmington Bay WMA so they’re from what Marty K. calls the “Dudley Wayback Machine”.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I’m disappointed that I don’t have a\u00a0 shot of the harrier in flight before the maneuver began but she was still far enough away that I wasn’t taking any photos yet. But a split second prior to this shot she had been flying almost directly toward me and aimed over my right shoulder.<\/p>\n When she spotted potential prey directly below her she began her twisting maneuver designed to instantly stop her forward momentum so she could dive straight down on it. Many hawks hunt on the wing but generally they do it from a fairly high elevation so they have maneuvering distance between them and the prey as they descend on it.<\/p>\n Not so with harriers. They generally hunt very close to the ground and vegetation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A vertical crop of the previous image reveals how close she was to the top of the thick stand of phragmites when she first spotted the prey directly below her and began to stop her forward momentum. Here she’s still moving forward but she’s beginning to apply the brakes as she looks straight down at the prey (most likely a vole but possibly a small bird).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n In the next shot in the burst her air brakes are fully applied with the large surface areas of her plumage turned broadside to the direction she’d been traveling in order to achieve as much air resistance as possible. Her simultaneous twisting maneuver allowed her to keep her eye on the prey directly below her and begin her dive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n With her forward momentum stopped she’s now just beginning to drop straight down on her intended victim.<\/p>\n Notice that between this shot and the previous one she’s only lost a few inches of elevation. But immediately after this shot was taken she dropped like a rock, so quickly that she was out of frame when my shutter clicked the next time (in a burst my older Canon 7D only took 8 frames\/sec instead of the 10 frames\/sec of my current 7D Mark II. Frame rate matters to bird photographers).<\/p>\n When I’m watching them hunt in real time I find it hard to believe that they can perform this maneuver so incredibly fast but their less robust bodies, light weight and relatively large surface area of wings and tail allows them to pull it off using their resulting buoyant, gliding and slow flight.<\/p>\n Unlike other hawks Northern Harriers rely heavily on auditory cues as well as visual ones to detect and capture prey so hunting so close to the ground and vegetation is a huge advantage for them.<\/p>\n And that requires incredible agility and maneuverability to be successful.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I see this maneuver from Northern Harriers often and every time I’m awed by it.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/northern-harrier-9805-vertical-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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