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<\/p>\nNormally I avoid doing back to back posts on the same species but I went out shooting immediately after I published that last post and surprisingly it turned out to be a heckuva harrier morning.\u00a0 I’ve mentioned\u00a0 before that I usually have my best luck with harriers in the middle of winter, but yesterday I found two cooperative birds.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc,\u00a0natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This beauty was hunkered down for a break from hunting and let me get surprisingly close.\u00a0 It was early morning, the light was warm, and the bird posed for me for a long time.\u00a0 I chose to post this almost direct look from the hawk for a reason – because out of all those images, this one shows the unique\u00a0harrier facial disc best.<\/p>\n A facial disc is a concave arrangement of feathers on the\u00a0face of some birds (most notably owls)\u00a0that forms a circular parabaloid that collects sound waves and redirects them toward the ears.\u00a0 In harriers the disc is less prominent than in owls, but larger in relative size because it extends to the neck, so it is\u00a0commonly referred to as a facial ruff, rather than a disc.\u00a0\u00a0 The large ear openings of harriers are buried in the feathers of the head and can’t be seen.\u00a0 The angle of the disc or ruff feathers can be adjusted to alter the focal length of the sound waves they’re collecting, which allows the bird to “focus” at different distances – a neat\u00a0 trick when attempting to locate small prey in heavy vegetation.\u00a0 I’ve often seen harriers dive on prey when it’s buried in brush and watched the bird cock its head back and forth as it tries to hone in on the exact location of the prey from the rustling sounds they often make.<\/p>\n Most hawks normally hunt by sight alone – the arsenal of harriers is double that.\u00a0 This also explains why the hunting style of harriers is so distinctive from other hawks – harriers hunt very close to the ground to make their hearing more effective while other hawk species tend to hunt from higher elevations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0Finally, after almost 15 minutes of posing for me, the harrier took off.\u00a0 I wasn’t able to compose this shot as I would have\u00a0preferred but I like the take-off posture and the good look at the eye.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Later in the morning I spotted this male harrier (males are often called “gray ghosts”, for their color and elusiveness)\u00a0hunting along the road.\u00a0\u00a0 For a variety of reasons it was always even with me or slightly past me when I got a shot that I liked but when I would get a slight look back from the bird\u00a0I thought it made the image work pretty well.\u00a0 The upper background is the Great Salt Lake with mud and sand flats at bottom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n When harriers hunt they’re nearly always looking down (watching and<\/em> listening), which makes it difficult to get a good look at the eye.\u00a0 But since this head position while hunting is typical for them I’ll often keep shots like that as long as the eye is distinct.\u00a0 If this had been an adult female with the very dark eye I’d have trashed the shot if I didn’t have a catch light.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n An image like this sometimes throws our brains for a loop.\u00a0 We’re used to seeing blue sky backgrounds up top, a horizon line, then darker elements at bottom, but here those visual cues are reversed because there’s shallow water pools on the mud flats.\u00a0\u00a0In this shot\u00a0the blue below is water, not sky and the darker background above is mud flats.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Even when the bird is this far in front of\u00a0my position\u00a0I’ll often still like the shot if it turns its head this much to look back at me.\u00a0 I do wish the right wing were lifted a bit more though.<\/p>\n Yep, yesterday was a harrier kind of day.\u00a0 As Mia and I often say to each other, “you just never know what we’ll see on the island”.\u00a0\u00a0 Not that seeing harriers out there is at all unusual – but getting close to them this time of year certainly is.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Normally I avoid doing back to back posts on the same species but I went out shooting immediately after I published that last post and surprisingly it turned out to be a heckuva harrier morning.\u00a0 I’ve mentioned\u00a0 before that I usually have my best luck with harriers in the middle of winter, but yesterday I found two cooperative birds. \u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc,\u00a0natural light, not baited, set up or called in This beauty was hunkered down for a break from hunting and let me get surprisingly close.\u00a0 It was early morning, the light was warm, and the bird posed for me for a long time.\u00a0 I chose to post this almost direct look from the hawk for a reason – because out of all those images, this one shows the unique\u00a0harrier facial disc best. A facial disc is a concave arrangement of feathers on the\u00a0face of some birds (most notably owls)\u00a0that forms a circular parabaloid that collects sound waves and redirects them toward the ears.\u00a0 In harriers the disc is less prominent than in owls, but larger in relative size because it extends to the neck, so it is\u00a0commonly referred to as a facial ruff, rather than a disc.\u00a0\u00a0 The large ear openings of harriers are buried in the feathers of the head and can’t be seen.\u00a0 The angle of the disc or ruff feathers can be adjusted to alter the focal length of the sound waves they’re collecting, which allows the bird to “focus” at different distances – a…<\/p>\n![\"northern](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/northern-harrier-9486-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern")
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