{"id":19219,"date":"2015-01-31T06:09:30","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T13:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=19219"},"modified":"2026-02-02T07:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:25:59","slug":"swainsons-hawk-juvenile-in-low-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2015\/01\/31\/swainsons-hawk-juvenile-in-low-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Swainson’s Hawk Juvenile In Low Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Swainson'sSwainson’s Hawk juvenile in low light – Nikon D810, f5, 1\/800, ISO 800, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR, natural light, not baited
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I put a CF card into my backup camera two days ago and realized that the card still had images on it from my last trip up to Montana in September of 2014 and on that card I found images of this juvenile Swainson’s Hawk photographed in Beaverhead County<\/span><\/a>. I had uploaded the images to my hard drives I just hadn’t formatted that card.<\/p>\n

The light was cruddy the day I took this image but that didn’t stop me from taking images of this very cooperative bird. It perched on a fence post along side the road and was so close I had to take my teleconverter off and even then it was tight. This frame was only cropped a small amount on the side but top to bottom that is as much space as I had. For a bit I even took images of it with my D300 with my 70-300mm VR lens because I knew if the young hawk took off it was going to be clipped.<\/p>\n

The young Swainson’s Hawk didn’t take off even though other vehicles went past it. When these hawks are young they seem to have little fear of humans in vehicles. This Swainson’s Hawk was still perched on the post when I went down the road.<\/p>\n

I wonder if this juvenile Swainson’s Hawk made the long migration to South America and if I will see it again in the Centennial Valley of Montana this spring.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Swainson\u2019s Hawk photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wonder if this juvenile Swainson’s made the long migration to South America and if I will see it again in the Centennial Valley of Montana this spring. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19218,"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":[1513,27,223,12,206],"tags":[2663,4200,3830,898,4169,4067,4071,156,4104,153,4034,8917,4193],"class_list":["post-19219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beaverhead-county-montana","category-avian","category-centennial-valley","category-montana","category-swainson-hawks","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-buteo-swainsoni","tag-fence","tag-fence-post","tag-hawks","tag-immature","tag-juvenile","tag-low-light-2","tag-perched","tag-raptors","tag-swainsons-hawk","tag-wooden-post","tag-young"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/swainsons-hawk-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-6818.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-4ZZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15970,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/09\/26\/head-on-stare-from-a-juvenile-swainsons-hawk\/","url_meta":{"origin":19219,"position":0},"title":"Head 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Montana","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"August 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Not only did I see numerous Red-tailed Hawk juveniles on my recent trip to Montana, I also saw quite a few Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) juveniles too.","rel":"","context":"In "Beaverhead County"","block_context":{"text":"Beaverhead County","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/montana\/beaverhead-county-montana\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Swainson\u2019s Hawk juvenile, intermediate morph, Beaverhead County, Montana","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/swainsons-hawk-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-2259.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/swainsons-hawk-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-2259.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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