{"id":51718,"date":"2018-04-19T06:14:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T12:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=51718"},"modified":"2025-11-22T13:21:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:21:29","slug":"female-american-kestrel-lifting-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/04\/19\/female-american-kestrel-lifting-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Female American Kestrel Lifting Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FemaleFemale American Kestrel lifting off after consuming her prey – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2500, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

After Consuming Her Prey in Northern Utah<\/h2>\n

I’m keeping this post short and sweet this morning because I’m not feeling great. I sneezed repeatedly yesterday morning while I was out photographing so it seems that my seasonal allergies have kicked into high gear.<\/p>\n

Then after I got back home I developed a headache that lasted until I went to sleep and I woke up with it this morning. This will pass and I’ll be back to 100% soon.<\/p>\n

I did see some nice birds yesterday including a couple of Short-eared Owls, Northern Harriers, Swainson’s and Red-tailed Hawks, one Cooper’s Hawk, one immature Bald Eagle, lots of Turkey Vultures, a Chukar, my first of the season Western Kingbirds, many smaller birds that flew away too fast to be identified, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, some Ring-necked Pheasants, magpies, and meadowlarks.<\/p>\n

The bird that was the most cooperative yesterday morning was a female American Kestrel<\/span><\/a> that I spotted and shared who was eating her prey on a lichen encrusted rock. She stuck around until after she had finished consuming the small rodent she had captured before I found her.<\/p>\n

I took several hundred images of her while she ate her prey and then proceeded to clean off her bill.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share just one photo of the kestrel and picked this one of her that was taken the moment she started to lift off from the rock she had been dining on because of the position of her wings, the great eye contact plus the silvery background which is out of focus rabbitbrush. I wish those out of focus grass stems weren’t in front of the rock but there wasn’t much I could do about them.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

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

The bird that was the most cooperative yesterday morning was a female American Kestrel that I spotted eating her prey on a lichen encrusted rock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164571,"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":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,27,1148,26],"tags":[4004,155,2663,4098,4199,4078,4279,5632,4070,6276,4892,4282,4470,165,3792],"class_list":["post-51718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrel","category-avian","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-american-kestrel","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-desert","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-falcon","tag-falcons","tag-falcons-of-utah","tag-female","tag-kestrel","tag-kestrels","tag-lift-off","tag-rocks","tag-spring","tag-take-off"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/american-kestrel-female-lift-off-mia-mcpherson-0654.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-dsa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":108592,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/12\/10\/female-american-kestrel-urban-birds\/","url_meta":{"origin":51718,"position":0},"title":"Female American Kestrel – Urban Birds","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I was thrilled to have this female American Kestrel in my neighborhood and viewfinder after an overnight snow fell two days ago.","rel":"","context":"In "American Kestrels"","block_context":{"text":"American Kestrels","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/falcons\/american-kestrel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Female American Kestrel on a snowy light, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/american-kestrel-adult-female-light-snow-mia-mcpherson-5862.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/american-kestrel-adult-female-light-snow-mia-mcpherson-5862.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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Prey","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"American Kestrels are fascinating falcons, they are tiny, colorful and at times quite pugnacious.","rel":"","context":"In "American Kestrels"","block_context":{"text":"American Kestrels","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/falcons\/american-kestrel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Female American Kestrel with prey in Utah, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/american-kestrel-female-prey-mia-mcpherson-5625.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/american-kestrel-female-prey-mia-mcpherson-5625.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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McPherson","date":"December 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been seeing plenty of American Kestrels lately but none have been close enough to get nice images of so I pulled this one out of my archives from 2010.","rel":"","context":"In "American Kestrels"","block_context":{"text":"American Kestrels","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/falcons\/american-kestrel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Female Kestrel with prey on a snowy day, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/american-kestrel-female-prey-mia-mcpherson-9662.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/american-kestrel-female-prey-mia-mcpherson-9662.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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