There is nothing quite like getting front row tickets to a great show, am I right?
For me, at least, this is especially true when the great show in question is nature.
Today, while traversing the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route lady luck tossed me a free ticket to one of the best shows on earth, a rough-legged hawk doing what rough-legged hawks do best, hunt for rodents.
But this wasn’t just any ordinary production viewed from the balcony with cheap spectacles, not by a longshot.
I was privileged to have front-row seats to not only watch but to photograph the choreography between predator and prey as well.
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Each fall, rough-legged hawks migrate from their breeding grounds in far northern reaches of the North American continent, the arctic tundra, to spend their winters in portions of the United States.
The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Brigham City, Utah is, in fact, one of the destinations the rough-legged hawk migrates to for a few short months during winter to hunt for and feed upon rodents, such as mice, rats, and voles.
Sometimes the rough-legged hawk gives an eager bird watcher quite an up-close encounter, sitting very content on its man-made perch scouring the landscape for any signs of movement in the dense salt grass below.
Other times the mottled brown raptor is a little bit stingy with its time and flies off to a distant roost to watch for an unsuspecting meal below without an audience.
But every once in a while the rough-legged hawk lets one of us bird watchers into its world in a very up-close and personal way to view and enjoy it on a level not often seen with other raptor species.
Over the years, I have been privileged to have had several extremely close opportunities to photograph the rough-legged hawk casually perched on a sign or fence post.
But never before have I been lucky enough to stand witness as a rough-legged hawk so intently searches the ground for a rodent in the thick salt grass just a few short feet away.
As with most days on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, I had numerous sightings of rough-legged hawks all up and down Forest Street on my way to the auto tour route this morning.
I typically, however, pass up these photo opportunities on man-made perches and hope for something a bit more of a natural setting.
Rough-legged hawks hunt by both hovering in place high above the landscape and by sitting on a perch with eyes fixed on the landscape around them.
As I came around to the first parking lot on the refuge auto loop, I noticed a rough-legged hawk perched on a sign, intently scanning the terrain below.
Just as I had taken a couple of images, the hawk launched from the display and bee-lined it for a nearby patch of thick salt grass.
The rough-legged hawk stood there for a few minutes, obviously searching for the missing rodent.
I drove up a bit closer to watch the cat-and-mouse game unfold firsthand.
After several minutes, I expected the determined hawk to give up and fly back to his post but that never happened.
The rough-legged hawk kept on searching in the thick salt grass for the missed opportunity.
At this point, I was about 12 feet away from the raptor and it showed absolutely no interest in my presence so I quietly watched and photographed the search for what seemed like 20 minutes or more.
Eventually, the rough-legged hawk gave up and flew back to a nearby sign to begin the task of watching the refuge landscape once again for another rodent.
It was an incredible sight to behold how determined the rough-legged hawk was in its search for the rodent that had gotten away.
Typically I see a brief ground search by rough-legged hawks before returning to their perch but this hawk obviously didn’t want to give up the chase at any cost.
It’s interesting how some rough-legged hawks are a bit more cautious than others around people and others, like this one was, showed absolutely no concern for my presence just a few feet away during the hunt or on its perch.
It has been said rough-legged hawks show little to no fear or concern for humans because they see so few, if any, of us on their summer breeding grounds so they have no real reason to fear us as a threat.
I don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know the rough-legged hawk is one raptor species that isn’t too hard to get close to during their winter trips to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, making for some great bird watching and photography moments while they are here.
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