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Dave, 9 weeks old weimaraner (Gray Ghost). He couldn´t stay still even one second :)
My personal favorite of Dave :
KCSM 4548 ("Grey Ghost" AC4400CW) leads CPKC 541 solo, seen here passing underneath the Tower B-12 signals in Franklin Park, IL while on its way to Tower B-17, where it will turn north towards the C&M.
Gray ghost surprise!!
It's always good to wash your fruit in the morning. You may ask...."But why?".....The answer...because it means you're facing your big sliding glass doors and might spot something wonderful out in the open space behind your house. That's exactly what happened. I saw a hawk come swooping in and land right behind my fence. I assumed it was our resident red-tailed hawk.....but when I went over to look...it was flying away from me and I could see it had a white patch on top of it's tail which could only mean a Northern Harrier. However, what I didn't expect was that it was a MALE harrier or as many call it a Grey ghost!!! We have never seen a male harrier hunting behind our house. I made some inaudible sounds with my excitement.....grabbed my camera and bolted out of the back door. I really didn't expect it to hang around very long, and it didn't. It flew out of sight, but then back in sight, and then repeated this numerous times. Finally he started making some circles and made a few passes right in front of me. He also managed to fly with some very nice fall colors behind him in the distance. I will have a few more to share, but here are some of my favorites.
Nikon Z9 with Nikkor 180-600mm F5.6-6.3 lens at 600mm, 1/1600sec, F8, various ISO's from 360 to 720, handheld and cropped. (Please view images large for best details) Nov 16 2024 Northern Colorado
Northern Harrier of Mercer
The Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus) also known as the Hen Harrier is a bird of prey. It breeds throughout the northern parts of the northern hemisphere in Canada and the northernmost USA, and in northern Eurasia. This species is polytypic, with two subspecies. Marsh Hawk is a historical name for the American form.
It migrates to more southerly areas in winter. Eurasian birds move to southern Europe and southern temperate Asia, and American breeders to the southernmost USA, Mexico, and Central America. In the mildest regions, such as France, Great Britain, and the southern US, Northern Harrier may be present all year, but the higher ground is largely deserted in winter.
Harriers have an owl-like face. The concave facial disk and relatively large off-set ears enable the bird to use triangulation of sound to help locate prey such as mice, voles, juvenile rabbits, frogs, pheasant chick, and other birds in dense vegetation. The female Harrier is larger than the male; hence, the female takes larger prey than the male.
For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_harrier
KCSM 4565 ("Grey Ghost" AC4400CW) leads a GP20C-ECO on CPKC 246, seen here on the approach to Tower B-17 in Bensenville, IL.
A male northern harrier, or gray ghost makes a close flyby in some perfect evening light. I see lots of male northern harriers, but they are most often skittish. It was an incredible experience to find one in Pt. Reyes that was totally indifferent to people. He often flew only 15ft away from me during his daily hunting routine.\
KCS 4040 (SD70ACe) leads a CP SD60-3, a KCSM "Grey Ghost" AC4400CW, and another KCS SD70ACe on a four-locomotive CPKC 346 grain train, seen here passing through Des Plaines, IL.
Gray ghost surprise!!
It's always good to wash your fruit in the morning. You may ask...."But why?".....The answer...because it means you're facing your big sliding glass doors and might spot something wonderful out in the open space behind your house. That's exactly what happened. I saw a hawk come swooping in and land right behind my fence. I assumed it was our resident red-tailed hawk.....but when I went over to look...it was flying away from me and I could see it had a white patch on top of it's tail which could only mean a Northern Harrier. However, what I didn't expect was that it was a MALE harrier or as many call it a Grey ghost!!! We have never seen a male harrier hunting behind our house. I made some inaudible sounds with my excitement.....grabbed my camera and bolted out of the back door. I really didn't expect it to hang around very long, and it didn't. It flew out of sight, but then back in sight, and then repeated this numerous times. Finally he started making some circles and made a few passes right in front of me. He also managed to fly with some very nice fall colors behind him in the distance. I will have a few more to share, but here are some of my favorites.
Nikon Z9 with Nikkor 180-600mm F5.6-6.3 lens at 600mm, 1/1600sec, F8, various ISO's from 360 to 720, handheld and cropped. (Please view images large for best details) Nov 16 2024 Northern Colorado
My daughter, Meg's, Weimaraner. She came from Weimaraner Rescue in Michigan three years ago, and is a lovely girl
The Weimaraner
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimaraner
From the sets entitled 'Sophie' and 'Cordova Lake August 2008'
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157603870220172/
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157606673752926/
Exif Info:
Camera: Canon XTi
Manual Exposure
Shutter Speed: 1/800
Aperture Value: 4
ISO: 100
WB: Cloudy
Focal Length: 70mm
Compression: RAW, then JPEG
Post Processing Info:
Canon ZoomBrowser Ex: crop, sharpening
PhotoShop Elements 5: light balancing.
I rarely see male Northern Harriers on the Sumas Prairie, so this is likely the same bird I saw last month.
I see female Northern Harriers occasionally, usually surprise fly-bys just above the vegetation, and always a challenge to photograph. But this is the elusive male, the "gray ghost", perched **nicely** back-lit against that afternoon sun - another challenge. I actually saw more males in my several days at Point Reyes National Seashore than females. And I could swear I saw this same one several times in the same area out the Pierce Ranch road - in fact, there were at least two breathtaking low close fly-bys across my windshield as I was creeping along in the car. Cool stuff.
KCS 2016, a relatively rare "Grey Ghost" GP38-2, has taken up residence at Bensenville Yard and has been assigned to the I47 switch job, serving local industries in the Schaumburg area on T-Th and the Mars / Newlyweds plants on the Elgin / C&M Subs, respectively, on M-W-F.
Here, Wednesday's job heads east to switch out Mars, passing underneath the water tower in Elmwood Park, IL in the process.
The male Northern Harrier is also known as the Gray Ghost because it is rarely seen. The female is very common, but the male comes to mate with females and then vanishes! This particular male broke the mold and has stayed with the female for two months now, even helping her build the nest!
Whitewater Draw, Arizona
A male northern harrier scans the ground for prey at Whitewater Draw in southern Arizona.
KCSM 4548, a "Grey Ghost" AC4400CW, leads CPKC 180 past the Schaumburg, IL Metra station during the waning moments of the blue hour.
KCSM 4542 ("Grey Ghost" AC4400CW) trundles toward Tower B-17 in Bensenville, IL with CPKC 248 in tow, while an American Airlines flight departs O'Hare International Airport overhead.
As a pleasant surprise this morning on 248 was KCSM 4570, still in the former TFM gray scheme, nicknamed "Gray Ghost" by many railfans. Here they are as they finish their work at Cottage Grove and pass over Jamaica Ave with a large cut of autoracks
Northern harrier at Roosevelt Wetlands, Pinellas County, FL. Check out my blog at dinascitywildlife.com/
Northern Harrier male who was sitting confidently on his favorite perch. Turns out favorite perch is just on the side of the trail, near the start of the trail, and I was dying to take a walk, so eventually I did walk past where he was ("on the far side of the trail" but it wasn't a wide trail) and he did take off, disgruntledly. He posed very well on his perch but in this direction, he was backlit, so I only ended up keeping one of the perching photos from this vantage. In that photo he was already starting to fluff his wings a bit, as he could tell I was coming close. ... Aha! Per Cornell, “Either the male or the female chooses the nest site, which is on the ground and usually in a dense clump of vegetation such as willows, grasses, sedges, reeds, bulrushes, and cattails.” He must be guarding a nest site. There was a female spending a lot of time near there as well.