{"id":9550,"date":"2012-11-28T05:34:17","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T12:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=9550"},"modified":"2013-05-24T13:41:29","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T19:41:29","slug":"prairie-falcon-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/28\/prairie-falcon-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Falcon Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been 16 days since I’ve seen a Prairie Falcon along the causeway and I had just about given up on them for the short-term.\u00a0 But yesterday, as I was leaving the island after a relatively fruitless morning, I spotted that distinctive flash of bright breast\u00a0whites up ahead among the rocks and very close to the road.\u00a0 Sure enough, as I got closer I could tell it was Falco mexicanus <\/em>perched on a colorful boulder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll sheepishly admit to the fact that in situations like this I typically come down with a case of “buck fever” (aggravated by the fact that I have familial tremors) and sure enough I was actually shaking with excitement and dread as I tried to maneuver my pickup to get a clear shot of the bird through all the vegetation along the road.\u00a0\u00a0With this\u00a0particular perch, this was the most unobstructed view I could get.\u00a0 In case you’re wondering what the source of my “dread” could be, I’m a dedicated pessimist at heart (which Mia mercilessly teases me about)\u00a0and I’m always convinced that the bird will take off a split second before I get the pickup stopped in a safe place and\u00a0my finger on the shutter.\u00a0 That exact thing had\u00a0happened twice that morning with Red-tailed Hawks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I believe this\u00a0 bird was actively hunting ducks and it would perch for a few minutes, then fly up or down the causeway buzzing waterfowl and then land on another rock.\u00a0 I could never see where it had landed so I had to search for it again each time.\u00a0 This was the third\u00a0rock I found the falcon on (the second one had a crappy background and light angle).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This was my favorite perch of the morning for this bird.\u00a0 I had an unobstructed view of the falcon, the sun was almost directly behind me and I liked the rock and the background.\u00a0 The falcon rested here for almost 10 minutes – what more could I ask for?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0When the falcon decided it was time to go hunting again, it raised its wings just before take-off.\u00a0 Thankfully, in preparation for just that, I had already removed my tc so I wouldn’t clip anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0As it raised them even higher I got my favorite shot of the morning, with a nice wing position, a raised foot and good eye contact.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"prairie<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And then the falcon took off.\u00a0 I deleted the actual lift-off shots because the bird had turned away from me and I clipped the wings anyway.<\/p>\n

I’m hoping to get some feedback from\u00a0any raptor specialists or falconers who may read this\u00a0regarding a couple of questions I have.\u00a0\u00a0I believe I’m\u00a0beginning to see a pattern when Prairie Falcons take off.\u00a0 Quite often they seem to raise their wings up like this\u00a0and hold them there for a second or two before they actually lift off.\u00a0 That’s a pattern I haven’t noticed\u00a0in other falcons (I\u00a0have limited experience with Peregrines)\u00a0or\u00a0raptors so I’m wondering if it might be a\u00a0behavioral trait largely exclusive to Prairie Falcons.<\/p>\n

And I strongly suspect this to be the same bird as in my recent post <\/a>of just over two weeks ago\u00a0of a Prairie Falcon with a duck kill.\u00a0 Can anyone tell for sure?<\/p>\n

Thanks for any help.<\/p>\n

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

It’s been 16 days since I’ve seen a Prairie Falcon along the causeway and I had just about given up on them for the short-term.\u00a0 But yesterday, as I was leaving the island after a relatively fruitless morning, I spotted that distinctive flash of bright breast\u00a0whites up ahead among the rocks and very close to the road.\u00a0 Sure enough, as I got closer I could tell it was Falco mexicanus perched on a colorful boulder.   \u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is the Great Salt Lake I’ll sheepishly admit to the fact that in situations like this I typically come down with a case of “buck fever” (aggravated by the fact that I have familial tremors) and sure enough I was actually shaking with excitement and dread as I tried to maneuver my pickup to get a clear shot of the bird through all the vegetation along the road.\u00a0\u00a0With this\u00a0particular perch, this was the most unobstructed view I could get.\u00a0 In case you’re wondering what the source of my “dread” could be, I’m a dedicated pessimist at heart (which Mia mercilessly teases me about)\u00a0and I’m always convinced that the bird will take off a split second before I get the pickup stopped in a safe place and\u00a0my finger on the shutter.\u00a0 That exact thing had\u00a0happened twice that morning with Red-tailed Hawks.     \u00a01\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in, background is…<\/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":[334,371],"tags":[31,998,539,131,178,254],"class_list":["post-9550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-prairie-falcons","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-buck-fever","tag-causeway","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-hunting","tag-prairie-falcon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2u2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9550","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=9550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}