{"id":99044,"date":"2021-06-08T05:33:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T11:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=99044"},"modified":"2021-06-08T05:42:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T11:42:07","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-with-a-food-delivery-for-her-chicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/08\/red-tailed-hawk-with-a-food-delivery-for-her-chicks\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk With A Food Delivery For Her Chicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I seldom get such a good look at raptor prey.<\/p>\n

Note: I wish I could include flight shots in this post but it was a cloudy morning and the light was low so most of my flight shots were soft.<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Eleven days ago I watched as this female Red-tailed Hawk flew in to the vicinity of her nest with prey in her talons. I expected her to deliver the vole directly to her four chicks in the nest but she fooled me by making an intermediate stop on this nearby perch. While she was there she transferred the vole from her talons to her beak before delivering it to her chicks in the nest.<\/p>\n

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I couldn’t resist cropping tightly on the previous photo for a better look at the vole. As a photographer I’m always pleased to get a catch light in the eye of prey, even when I have to crop this much to really see it. I thought it was considerate of her to hold the vole against a clean background for a moment which allowed me to get a much better look at it than I usually can.<\/p>\n

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1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here she’s about to take off for the nest. I’d have had some really nice takeoff and flight shots of her if I’d had better light. But I didn’t so I don’t.<\/p>\n

Note: This photo may look like it needs rotation but she really was tipped this much just before she took off.<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/800, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But I do kinda like this one as she’s about to land on the nest with the vole in her beak, even though she has her back to me (as both adults always did while landing on the nest). I was pleasantly surprised to get her sharp at such a slow shutter speed. I also like the good look at her beautiful flared tail and the full attention she has from three of her four chicks who are about to be fed helps to tell the story of the photo.<\/p>\n

She always had her back to me while she was feeding the chicks so I’m not including any of those photos.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note: These photos were taken ethically, as all of mine are. Regular readers know the drill but not everyone who reads my blog is a regular follower of Feathered Photography so I feel like I need to say it again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I seldom get such a good look at raptor prey.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99046,"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":[334,392,391,450],"tags":[452,5788,740,256,451,311,315],"class_list":["post-99044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-catch-light-in-eye-of-prey","tag-chicks","tag-prey","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-utah-2","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-8239b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-pLu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99044","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=99044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}