Northern Harrier (I think) in flight

[terrib]

I'm really excited to have with these. Still room for improvement but the best I've done so far with a bird in flight. I think this is a Northern Harrier female.

The last picture is just included for reference and has had no PP done on it and is not cropped. I watched her hover over this area next to our lake several different times. At one point she flew straight over me and with the camera mounted on a tripod I just couldn't keep up with her (even with a ball head) so I went handheld.

Oh, one thing I learned today is that I don't necessarily want to delete photos that aren't up to par. I used some sub-par photos today for further identification of this bird that I couldn't have gotten otherwise.

#1



#2



For Reference Only - No post was done on this one.

[jeeperman]

Yes, Terri. You got it right.....although.... this one is male. The females being much heavier molted brown with a twinge of orange cast. Cool birds, nice captures.

[jeeperman]

Well then I may be wrong, I was taught that the white belly was male. I will now have to look into it a little closer.

[inkista]

Whoops. Slippage. Sorry. Still not sure on this so deleted my post. I have soo much trouble with this.

Essentially, I said that the rufous (orangey stuff) may not be a good guide. It's the belly streaking: if it's streaked it's female, if not it's male. And pointed to this link:

http://utahbirders.blogspot.com/2010...rs-beware.html

[Shadowman]

Very nice, especially the second image, like the angle of the shot.

[Dave Humphries]

Very nice pair of shots Terri,

Oh, one thing I learned today is that I don't necessarily want to delete photos that aren't up to par. I used some sub-par photos today for further identification of this bird that I couldn't have gotten otherwise.

To mis-quote from Jaws; "We're gonna need a bigger disk"

(but yes, I do this too)

[jamn4ex]

I chased a harrier for 3 weeks . I didnt catch anything near as good as these. way to go Terri!

[terrib]

Thanks everyone for your comments. As long as I feel like I'm improving, I'm motivated to continue.