Cute, you say? - a photo on Flickriver

Cute, you say?

            This male American Kestrel had thoroughly convinced a sandpiper that kestrels are not cute at all.

Or, had he?  When I first spotted this guy, he appeared to squabble with a female who apparently thought he ought to share his snack with her.  It ended with her flying off in a huff, while he flew off to a different tree with a better view, sat there really quiet for a long time looking around, before he started eating.  Then I moved slightly (earlier I had walked right in front of his tree twice, trying to find the best position to shoot from, and he didn't even react), and he jumped to a more sheltered spot so I could not get any more shots of him.  Bummer!

But when I looked more thoroughly at the earlier shots, where he was trying to avoid the female, I noticed that she too had blood on her feet, making me wonder if it might have been her who originally caught the sandpiper?  Or had she had some success in taking his prey, and then he took it back?
Unlike him she didn't have blood or feathers on her beak, so she had probably not eaten off it, and the blood on her feet could come from another source.

Taken on: January 31, 2010

Tags:

bird

raptor

American Kestrel

Falco sparverius

raptor with prey

Bolsa Chica

Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve

Nikon D300

AF-S Nikkor 300mm f4 « less

Sets appears in: • The Birds

Groups appears in: • Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve

Camera: Nikon D300, f/5.6, 1/800 sec, 420mm (=630mm), ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D300
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	420mm (35mm equivalent: 630mm)
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Shutter speed priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Show full info

Stats: 880 views / 20 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder