Northern Harrier

Only my second sighting of an adult male Northern Harrier, this raptor approached me from behind, just to my left, as I started my walk around Fernhill Lake last Saturday. I was lucky that I happened to look back and saw it coming before it had passed me, so I was able to get some decent pictures of it.
I see female and young Northern Harriers fairly regularly, but few males. This topic was brought up on the Portland Area Birds Google Group back in January. Group owner Greg Gillson had this to say:

"Here's what I found on a web search....

Males breed with more than one female and the sex ratio is not even, according to multiple studies. There were 1.8 females for every 1 male on average in one frequently-quoted study.
There was a similar nesting success, something like 1.8 young fledging per nest on average.
So, females and juveniles ("brown" harriers) outnumber males in early winter by about 3.25 to 1. There was about a 60% mortality rate of first-year birds.
Complicating the apparent ratio, males may not winter in the same locations as female and juveniles. Males are smaller than females and may migrate farther south in winter. Age/sex groups do not migrate at the same time. Adults precede juveniles back to the breeding territory and males precede females."

Northern Harrier

A Northern Harrier on the hunt yesterday at RNWR.

Northern Harrier

I love watching Northern Harriers swooping over open meadows hunting for prey, sometimes hovering momentarily as they look down below. They are so graceful. And you can always tell its a Harrier, even from a distance, because you will inevitably see the large flash of white on their upper-tail coverts.
The Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge auto tour is a very interesting birding area. You are not allowed to get out of your car during the winter months and this has its pluses and minuses.
On the plus side, even the though the cars are moving (albeit slowly) they tend to act as moving bird blinds. I'm amazed at how close you can get to birds and the quantity you can see.
On the minus side, it can sometimes be restricting trying to take pictures.
The images above demonstrate a bit of both. On the one hand, I got pretty close to this Harrier. On the other, I had to turn my car sideways in order to get a shot and then I wasn't able to move around to get a clearer view of the bird. I've learned to get some shots from where I am before trying to get something better, so after I took these shots I tried to get closer, but it flew away.
All-in-all, it was pretty exciting to get the shots I did.

Northern Harrier

Another image from my visit to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in early September. This juvenile Northern Harrier was present through much of the visit swooping around the open grassland areas.