{"id":23272,"date":"2015-05-06T05:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T11:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=23272"},"modified":"2026-02-02T07:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:19:14","slug":"mating-swainsons-hawks-in-beaverhead-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2015\/05\/06\/mating-swainsons-hawks-in-beaverhead-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Mating Swainson’s Hawks in Beaverhead County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days ago I felt fortunate to come across a mated pair of Swainson’s Hawks in Beaverhead County, Montana, the male was an intermediate morph and the female was a light morph.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A male Swainson’s Hawk in Beaverhead County – Nikon D810, f7.1, 1\/1000, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/p><\/div>\n

I am back from my photo journey to eastern Idaho and southern Montana and I have 4,648 images to go through, cull, and select the best of them. When I am on trips like this one I tend to take tons of images but that also means lots of work when I get back.<\/p>\n

The male is shown in the photo above and has more rufous on his chest than the female does.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A female Swainson’s Hawk in Beaverhead County – Nikon D810, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/p><\/div>\n

And the female is shown in this image. Both hawks perched for a bit on fence posts along the side of the dirt road with a hillside in the background that is greening up.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A copulating pair of Swainson’s Hawks – Nikon D810, f6.3, 1\/1000, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/p><\/div>\n

Before the two images above were created the pair of Swainson’s Hawks mated in the distance and I was able to get a few images where I could see and get light their eyes but I was a long way from the hawks. I wish I had been a bit closer and that I had been on the other side of the birds for better light but I was happy to get images of them copulating because bird behavior fascinates me.<\/p>\n

I had a great trip.<\/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":"

Three days ago I felt fortunate to come across a mated pair of Swainson’s Hawks in Beaverhead County, Montana, the male was an intermediate morph and the female was a light morph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34119,"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":[1513,27,12,206],"tags":[2663,4200,3713,4033,4169,4363,153,4034],"class_list":["post-23272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beaverhead-county-montana","category-avian","category-montana","category-swainson-hawks","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-buteo-swainsoni","tag-copulating","tag-hawk","tag-hawks","tag-mating","tag-raptors","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/swainsons-hawk-thumbnail-mia-mcpherson-7418.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-63m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":67742,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/03\/31\/swainsons-hawk-chicks-sub-adult-and-adults\/","url_meta":{"origin":23272,"position":0},"title":"Swainson’s 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