{"id":96400,"date":"2021-03-23T06:09:44","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T12:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=96400"},"modified":"2021-03-23T06:09:44","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T12:09:44","slug":"a-massive-ferruginous-hawk-nest-including-a-chick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/23\/a-massive-ferruginous-hawk-nest-including-a-chick\/","title":{"rendered":"A Massive Ferruginous Hawk Nest, Including A Chick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>And to think that we thought Red-tailed Hawk nests take a lot of work to build. A typical red-tail nest pales in comparison to this one.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I closed my post with an observation about how much work was involved for a pair of Red-tailed Hawks to build their nest and several readers made similar statements in their comments. But the amount of work and building materials required for red-tails to build their nest pales in comparison to that required for Ferruginous Hawks.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve posted a photo of this Ferrug nest in the past but this one is new to my blog.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"96401\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/23\/a-massive-ferruginous-hawk-nest-including-a-chick\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;5.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;RON DUDLEY&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 7D&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1370613905&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;700&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;800&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.00025&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"ferruginous hawk nest 7032 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-96401 size-full\" title=\"ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is one of the two largest hawk nests I&#8217;ve ever seen and both of them were Ferrug nests in Montana&#8217;s Centennial Valley. It&#8217;s even larger than it looks but the single chick helps to provide scale for estimating size (there were actually three chicks in the bowl of the nest).<\/p>\n<p>Ferruginous Hawks are the largest and most powerful buteos in North America but I still marvel that they can fly while carrying some of these huge branches.\u00a0 But historically they&#8217;re known for using bison and pronghorn bones for nest construction so perhaps I shouldn&#8217;t be surprised. This nest and other Ferrug nests I&#8217;ve seen dwarf any red-tail nest I&#8217;ve encountered, by a very large margin.<\/p>\n<p>This nest has likely been used by Ferrugs for generations with each new pair building on top of the old nest. The &#8216;sticks&#8217; used by Ferrugs for nest construction are so large their nests tend to last for many decades. When Mike Shaw, a member of the Board of Trustees of HawkWatch International and a good friend, saw one of my photos of this particular nest he made the following observation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>&#8220;There\u2019s almost as much character in the structures as there is in their inhabitants. Unlike more transient Swainson\u2019s or Red-tailed nests, coming upon a massively built old Ferrug nest evokes the same kind of thoughts I get while pondering an ancient Anasazi or Fremont <\/em><em>dwelling. How many generations were raised here? What became of them? What dramas played out in there? If only those sticks could talk\u2026&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If those sticks <em>could<\/em> talk I&#8217;d love to hear their stories.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: Mike Shaw played a significant role in helping us to get <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff; text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/20\/another-nasty-encounter-between-an-owl-and-a-barbed-wire-fence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Galileo<\/a><\/span><\/span>, the fledgling Short-eared Owl I had to cut out of barbed wire, to rehab in a timely manner. That incident occurred on Father&#8217;s Day morning, a Sunday, so without his help Galileo may never have survived. I&#8217;ll be forever grateful to Mike for his selfless efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In the end the little owl couldn&#8217;t be released back into the wild so today, nearly five years later, he still lives a pampered life as an education bird for HawkWatch International. HWI named him Galileo.\u00a0 Blog follower and friend Tana Peery Hunter is a volunteer at HWI and she helps to care for Galileo. Thank you, Tana!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And to think that we thought Red-tailed Hawk nests take a lot of work to build. A typical red-tail nest pales in comparison to this one.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/23\/a-massive-ferruginous-hawk-nest-including-a-chick\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96401,"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":[334,377,1493,391],"tags":[555,481,5675,138,3257,1432,4455,220,4119],"class_list":["post-96400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ferruginous-hawks","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-centennial-valley","tag-chick","tag-construction-materials","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-galileo","tag-hawkwatch-international","tag-mike-shaw","tag-montana-2","tag-nest-size"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ferruginous-hawk-nest-7032-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-p4Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96400","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=96400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}