{"id":61663,"date":"2019-11-24T05:19:57","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T12:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=61663"},"modified":"2023-11-24T03:22:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T10:22:04","slug":"dark-morph-ferruginous-hawk-photographed-in-early-morning-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2019\/11\/24\/dark-morph-ferruginous-hawk-photographed-in-early-morning-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Morph Ferruginous Hawk Photographed In Early Morning Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t be 100% positive that this dark morph Ferruginous Hawk is the same dark morph I photographed on November 17th<\/span><\/a> but due to the relatively low numbers of dark morphs of this species I am fairly certain that it is the same bird.<\/p>\n

\"DarkDark morph Ferruginous Hawk in early morning light – Nikon D500, f5.6, 1\/1000, ISO 800, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, I photographed this dark morph Ferruginous Hawk in about the same location so this hawk, if it is indeed the same bird, may be sticking around because of prey availability.<\/p>\n

When I spotted and pointed out this Ferruginous Hawk yesterday morning it wasn’t hunting, it was resting on a fence post with foothills behind it. This image was taken at a distance where I took a nice series of the dark hawk.<\/p>\n

\"RestingResting dark morph Ferruginous Hawk in early morning light – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/800, ISO 800, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

The early morning light looked spectacular on the dark plumage of this Ferruginous Hawk and seemed to make it glow against the distant foothills.<\/p>\n

This image was taken after slowly moving towards the resting raptor. There were no signs of the bird being distressed by the vehicle. This is a rather busy road and raptors seem to get used to the presence of vehicles moving up and down the road.<\/p>\n

\"EarlyEarly morning dark morph Ferruginous Hawk – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 800, -1.0 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

These last three photos were taken after moving towards the dark Ferruginous Hawk at a snail’s pace.<\/p>\n

In this photo I can see a little bit of frost clinging to the upper back of the hawk. I’d seen a low of 20\u00b0F earlier in the morning so I wasn’t really surprised to see frost on this bird’s feathers especially since the sunlight had probably only started to warm the bird up.<\/p>\n

\"DarkDark morph Ferruginous Hawk with a bloody bill – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 800, -1.0 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

I was able to see that the hawk still had some blood on its bill from its last meal as it rested on top of the wooden fence post.<\/p>\n

I photograph birds all the time and there are a few that simply take my breath away and totally mesmerize me, this dark morph Ferruginous Hawk is one of those birds. It mesmerized me so much that I didn’t even think about taking off my teleconverter, I was that deeply immersed in viewing its beauty through my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

\"DarkDark morph Ferruginous Hawk getting ready to lift off – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 800, -1.0 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn’t fully prepared when the dark morph Ferruginous Hawk finally lifted off without any warning, not even a shake of its feathers. This photo was taken just as it started to lift off, the images I took after this one were lovely but every one of them had a portion of the bird out of the frame because I hadn’t removed my teleconverter. Live and learn.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

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

I photograph birds all the time and there are a few that simply take my breath away and totally mesmerize me, this dark morph Ferruginous Hawk is one of those birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,1069,358,26,1314],"tags":[5552,2663,8023,4268,2497,4530,4224,6692,898,2092,7017,4169,2386,4282,153,4156,10452],"class_list":["post-61663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-ferruginous-hawks","category-tooele-county","category-utah","category-west-desert-utah","tag-bill","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-bloody","tag-buteo-regalis","tag-buteos","tag-dark-morph","tag-early-morning","tag-early-morning-light","tag-fence-post","tag-ferruginous-hawk","tag-foothills","tag-hawks","tag-hawks-of-utah","tag-lift-off","tag-raptors","tag-resting","tag-sky-island-mountains"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t