Red-tailed Hawk Behavior When A Northern Harrier Attacks
When I heard a call to my left I glanced in that direction and saw a female Northern Harrier flying towards the Red-tailed at break neck speed.
When I heard a call to my left I glanced in that direction and saw a female Northern Harrier flying towards the Red-tailed at break neck speed.
The best bird I spotted that I could photograph was a male Red-tailed Hawk resting on a cliff face and what I loved about this photo was all the grasses, lichen, wildflowers and the sage high up on the cliff.
Justice has been served in the case of Richard Parker killing the 150 raptors but that does not bring those valuable raptors back. Parker should be glad that I wasn't his judge.
I've shared photos of this gorgeous dark morph Swainson's Hawk before and I've written about how I believed it was the darkest, dark morph I had ever seen and to date that still holds true.
I had a great time photographing this beautiful rufous Red-tailed Hawk yesterday morning and I'm glad I had good light when I did.
By the time I took this next image in the series the Red-tailed Hawk had straightened her legs, her wings were high over her body and she was pushing off from the rock.
I'm happy to see that the rufous female Red-tailed Hawk does have a mate and that they are building a nest to raise their young in, I hope they are successful.
If I hadn't found and pointed out this stunning rufous Red-tailed Hawk yesterday morning I would have basically come home without a single decent image of a bird.
Would you be able to ID this hawk from just this image or similar view of it in the field if I hadn't already identified it in my title and my photo caption?
I've never been this close to a Rough-legged Hawk expelling a pellet before and it is likely that I will never be this fortunate again. This Rough-legged Hawk was my best bird for the day and I'm glad I stopped and waited for him to expel the pellet before moving on down the auto tour route.
Being at eye level with this Rough-legged Hawk carrying prey along the causeway to Antelope Island is an experience I won't soon forget.
After looking through all of those images I decided to share a photo today of an immature Rough-legged Hawk perched on a waterfowl rest area sign taken at Farmington Bay WMA on Christmas Eve day in 2013.
I was able to photograph two Ferruginous Hawks yesterday morning in the West Desert in Tooele County. The light was good, I had birds in my viewfinder and I was away from our building inversion so I was one happy woman.
Then the noise suddenly stopped and I saw the silhouette of a European Starling fly out of the tree with the Cooper's Hawk hot on its tail, literally.
It isn't often that I am able to be close enough to a Northern Harrier to take a portrait of one, in fact I can only think of one time that I've been that fortunate and that was in May of 2016.
Why did it make me laugh and smile? Because it looks like the Rough-legged Hawk might have been playing peek-a-boo as it looked towards me through its wingtips.
I was able to photograph two immature Red-tailed Hawks at East Canyon State Park and the photos I am sharing today are of the first one that I found.
Yesterday morning for a few moments I had one of those opportunities with a Red-tailed Hawk perched on top of some trees in East Canyon where the mountains in the background where still in the shadows and because of that the bird seemed to glow.
By this time of the year Swainson's Hawks have left Utah and headed towards South America to their wintering grounds but the memories I have of the hawks never leave me.
The more I have looked at this image over the past year the more I liked it for the flight pose, the look at the Red-tailed Hawk's plumage colors against those yellow leaves and somehow the poor lighting conditions became less significant to my eyes.
My big excitement yesterday morning was seeing my first, second and third of the year Rough-legged Hawks at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the next thing was seeing all the changes that have happened at the refuge since my last visit.
I saw a low of 15°F yesterday morning up in the East Canyon of the Wasatch Mountains and I also saw plenty of Red-tailed Hawk adults perched in trees and flying along the way.
A few weeks ago I observed and photographed an immature female Northern Harrier repeatedly harassing a Ring-necked Pheasant hen out on the marshes at Farmington Bay.
I know, I could grumble about not being able to photograph the young Cooper's Hawk taking its prey down just feet away from my Jeep but you know what? Being there to see nature in action was enough for me.
Back in March of this year I started watching and photographing a pair of Red-tailed Hawks in the process of building their nest on the face of a high cliff, these two juveniles are the results of the hard work of that pair of hawks.
I have been trying to photograph this rufous morph Red-tailed Hawk in good light since the first time I spotted her on the 24th of March in northern Utah, yesterday I finally accomplished that goal.
I was able to take these photos of the male Northern Harrier diving after his falling prey because I looked beyond my viewfinder and quickly locked onto the action happening overhead.
All of the Swainson's I photographed the first day of May last year were adults except for what I believe was a sub-adult dark morph Swainson's Hawk and I thought that hawk was a real beauty.
There are days when one bird can "make" the day great for me as a bird photographer, yesterday that bird was a Cooper's Hawk in a Wasatch Mountain canyon east of Salt Lake City.
Last week I was able to photograph several Swainson's Hawks, some perched and others while in flight and of the flight photos I liked this photo the most because of the mountains in the background.