Photographing birds during Autumn is a wonderful time for me in Utah, the beautiful fall colors delight and enthrall me, the air gets nippy and I find myself feeling a surge of energy whenever I am outdoors.
I don't mind the motion blur in these images and because northern harriers hunt by looking down at the ground for their prey I was very happy to get eye contact in both frames.
Tt was the first time that I have ever seen a Northern Harrier building a nest. It more than made my day!
Be prepared to become addicted to birds. You will have withdrawals if you don't shoot often enough, your shutter button finger will develop a nervous twitch
This Northern Harrier took about a minute to expel the pellet and I filled my buffer several times trying to catch all the action. The harrier appeared to be concentrating so hard on regurgitating the pellet that it nearly fell off of the fence.
There are times when I think an image might be worth a little extra work in post processing and this young male Northern Harrier image seemed worth the effort to repair a clipped wingtip.
I will have more opportunities with northern harriers in better light this winter and while I wouldn't consider this image perfect, I am happy with the results I obtained while photographing this "Gray Ghost".