{"id":1454,"date":"2010-11-24T06:48:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T12:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2024-04-06T06:27:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T12:27:16","slug":"northern-harrier-gray-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2010\/11\/24\/northern-harrier-gray-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Harrier – Gray Ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u201cGrayThe “Gray Ghost”, male Northern Harrier in hovering flight – D200, f5.6, 1\/500, ISO 640, +1.0 EV, 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not a setup, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

The male Northern Harrier is often called “The Gray Ghost”.\u00a0\u00a0The blue-gray color of the male is quite different than the browns the female displays plus the eyes of the male are a striking yellow while the females have straw yellow eyes. I see harriers here in Utah during the summer but the numbers during the winter far exceed those of warmer months.<\/p>\n

The image above was created under the challenging circumstance where the light was low. I primarily photograph birds using Aperture Priority<\/span><\/a>. I turn off the auto ISO on my camera, then I am able to change my ISO and aperture to get the shutter speed I feel is needed for the subject.<\/p>\n

Normally for a bird in flight I would want a shutter speed of at least 1\/1000, I was not able to obtain that for this photo so there is some motion blur of the wingtips. I used ISO 640, which might be pushing the limits on my Nikon D200 as far as producing images without excessive noise, then selected f5.6 to help with increasing my shutter speed. The biggest issue was the low light and I had to use +1.0 evaluation compensation to expose the bird well, that slowed my shutter speed down some.<\/p>\n

I did not apply Noise Reduction to this image in post-processing but did have the Auto Noise reduction feature of my camera turned on, that feature applies noise reduction automatically at ISO 400 and above.<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to view more of my Northern Harrier photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":127267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1022,697,50,348,26],"tags":[4004,970,2663,765,4620,4052,4122,349,6291,2783,3164,4033,4169,2386,4174,4062,4094,4006,153,4095],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-davis-county-utah","category-farmington-bay-wma","category-low-light","category-northern-harriers","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-autumn","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-circus-hudsonius","tag-fall","tag-flight","tag-flying","tag-gray-ghost","tag-gray-ghosts","tag-harrier","tag-harriers","tag-hawk","tag-hawks","tag-hawks-of-utah","tag-hovering-2","tag-male","tag-marsh","tag-northern-harrier","tag-raptors","tag-wetlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/northern-harrier-mia-mcpherson-male-flight-4804.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-ns","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4660,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/03\/20\/northern-harrier-in-flight\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":0},"title":"Northern Harrier in flight","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Just an image I took yesterday of this male Northern Harrier in flight. As simple as the image is I like the great eye contact it has.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Adult male Northern Harrier in flight, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-mia-mcpherson-8327.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-mia-mcpherson-8327.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-mia-mcpherson-8327.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0179.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0179.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0179.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0179.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":75942,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/12\/09\/focusing-on-a-gray-ghost-aka-male-northern-harrier\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":2},"title":"Focusing On A Gray Ghost – AKA Male Northern Harrier","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I am focusing on an adult male Northern Harrier that I had in my viewfinder for a few seconds yesterday that was on the wing over the marsh.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Male Northern Harrier in flight in a hazy sky, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-adult-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0507.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-adult-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-0507.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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"Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Male Northern Harrier flying near the Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-flying-mia-mcpherson-9971.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-flying-mia-mcpherson-9971.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-flying-mia-mcpherson-9971.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/northern-harrier-flying-mia-mcpherson-9971.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 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Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-4292.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-4292.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-4292.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/northern-harrier-male-flight-mia-mcpherson-4292.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20298,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2015\/02\/20\/northern-harriers-on-the-wing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":5},"title":"Northern Harriers On The Wing","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"February 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Male Northern Harriers, also called Gray Ghosts, are especially delightful to my eye when their plumage contrasts with soft bluebird skies that have just a touch of habitat in them","rel":"","context":"In "Davis County"","block_context":{"text":"Davis County","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/davis-county-utah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Male Northern Harrier with the Wasatch Range in the background, photographed from Farmington Bay, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/northern-harrier-flight-mia-mcpherson-0622.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/northern-harrier-flight-mia-mcpherson-0622.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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