Sunday, November 27, 2011

Gifts from the North


Yesterday I was finally able to get out and do some exploring around Billings. I wound up north of town on a beautiful clear day. From one point I could see in the distance the Crazy Mountains, the Beartooth Mountains (pictured above), the Bull Mountains, and the Pryor Mountains. There weren't may bird species to be found. A few Canada Geese on a frozen slough, a Common Raven here and there, and a small group of Horned Larks pretty much rounded out the list. Except for the Rough-legged Hawks.


Once I dropped in to the basin north of Billings near the town of Broadview I began to see Rough-legged Hawks. Lots of them. At one point I stopped and did a quick complete scan of the horizon and found eleven individuals. The photo above shows what I most often saw in the steady wind - a hawk hovering in the wind with it's head down scanning the fields below for something to eat.


One bird was hunting from the top of the eastern basin edge and after floating and hovering over the nearby fields, and he wound up perched on a powerpole just up the road from me.


At one point he dove off the pole into the field across the road from me, but apparently missed and returned to the pole.



4 comments:

Guy said...

Hi John

Great shots of the hawks.

Guy

Anonymous said...

Hi John:

Technically your photo of the Absarokas is the Beartooths; that's Granite Peak on the right end of the skyline (the darker segment).

Great photos, as usual.

Paul

Dave said...

John,

I think your pictures of the ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK is wonderful. I have recently started photographing birds and I am wondering what kind of camera/lens you used for these pictures. You can email me at:

theskins@rogers.com

Thanks

John Carlson said...

Thanks for the comment Guy. And my geography lessons continue! Thanks Paul, I puzzled over that a bit and wasn't sure, but guessed wrong.
The camera I am currently using is a Canon 50D with a EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS USM zoom lens.