On a recent early morning photography trip to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route I had a brief encounter with a red-tailed hawk where, surprisingly, it allowed me to take a few photos before the raptor flew off.
Red-tailed hawks usually fly away anytime I get within photography distance so it was quite unusual for this particular individual to sit like this with me being nearby, maybe 30 yards away I’d say but parked in my car with a camera at the ready.
It didn’t take long, however, only a minute or two at the most, for me to understand the reason why this particular raptor sat perched on a kestrel box for as long as it did with me being so close, the hawk had to expel a pellet.
Simply put, red-tailed hawks are carnivores and consume a lot of mice, rats, and voles as well as other mammals such as rabbits and ground squirrels in their diet but are unable to digest certain parts of their prey.
This means hawks and other raptors, similar to owls, regularly need to regurgitate pellets which are made up of the bones, feathers, fur, and any other indigestible material from their meal the bird cannot fully consume and digest.
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Luckily, I arrived at the kestrel box just in time to photograph the exact moment this particular red-tailed hawk regurgitated a pellet, something I had never seen before in person let alone capture with a camera from such a close distance.
At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on as the hawk started to act like it was choking, mouth opening and closing briefly before it was held wide open as the pellet was expelled and dropped to the ground.
The whole thing lasted about 30 seconds and afterward the red-tail hawk quickly gained his composure after the pellet was released and flew off as if nothing happened, leaving me with a few photographs and this story to share.
The timing of all of this just couldn’t have been any better and it just goes to show if you sit and watch nature, birds or anything else for that matter, you can oftentimes go away learning something about the natural world around us and, in turn, develop a greater understanding and appreciation for nature and all of the creatures in it, including birds which are by far my favorite to watch, photograph and write about here on this website.
If you like the natural world, including birds, bees, dragonflies, and all of the rest of the creatures that surround us every day, I offer you to head on over to our subscribe page and sign up for email notifications for future blog posts where we share our love of nature through photography and the written word from both on and off of the famous Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
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