Nemesis Bird: The Grey Ghost

[Doug Brown]

It's taken quite a while, but I was finally able to get some nice photos of a male Northern Harrier while up in Utah in January. Jim Neiger and I would patrol an area in our car and if one of us spotted a male, we'd hop out of the car and fire off as many frames as we could before it flew off. Jim calls this the run and gun technique; it's particularly suited to shooting hand held because you don't have the time to set up a tripod.



Canon 1D Mark III, 600mm + 1.4x, f/7.1, 1/3200, ISO 800, manual exposure, no flash, hand held

[Jim Fenton]

This is exactly what I call the male harriers here in Massachusetts as well :)

Can't really comment on the IQ with this monitor at work but the pose looks great.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, great details and BG. There is a slight blue cast on my monitor. I've seen male harriers only from far away and would be happy to find a cooperative one sometime.

[denise ippolito]

Doug, The details are great! Nice pose and HA. The BG is very complimentary.

[Randy Stout]

Doug:

Very nice, and the name is perfect.

On my work monitor (poor) the eye looks like it could stand just a bit of sharpening. The effect of the color scheme is great, really evokes a mood, gives one a sense of the birds world.

Are these guys not tolerant of shooting from a car as a mobile blind?

Thanks for sharing!

Randy

[Doug Brown]

Are these guys not tolerant of shooting from a car as a mobile blind?

They are fairly tolerant of humans in general. Doing flight photography from a car is quite difficult. We were covering a fairly large area looking for flying males. When we encountered one, we would stop the car with some room between us and the bird. This would give us enough time to get out of the car, lock focus on the bird, and take a burst of photos. Hand holding saves a significant amount of equipment setup time. For perched birds, this is not usually a problem. For flying birds, you will likely miss the shot if you are trying to deploy a tripod with a bird already up in the air and flying towards you.

[Randy Stout]

Doug:

Thanks for the clarification on the technique. I had assumed they were perched when you saw them first, and then flew off, but I get the setup now.

Randy

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice, I love those birds, difficul to find. We have one locally, but no pictures of him yet.

[Raul Quinones]

Beautiful picture and bird, nice pose, colors and details.

I have the opportunity to take few pics of male N. Harrier this past weekend, and I was kind of happy with the results... until I saw this post. No complains, I have the privilege to watch the species in real live and then look an awesome picture.

Saludos, Raul

[Craig Markham]

I really like the blue-bias in the balance -- creates what one could almost call a "bichrome" -- it beautifully complements the browns in the bird's back and enhances the intensity of the eye. It also suggests the cold of the Utah winter. The pose you captured and the contrast against the BG blows me away.

[Grace Scalzo]

Fantastic wing and tail position here, Doug.