{"id":1883,"date":"2012-01-31T02:51:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T01:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2014-11-23T14:37:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T13:37:54","slug":"merlin-perched-in-a-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/merlin-perched-in-a-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Merlin Perched in a Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merlins are winter visitors in the Salt Lake Valley so I have just a few more weeks to attempt photographing them. Merlins used to be called “pigeon hawks” because their shape and flight patterns are similar to pigeons. Merlins feed on small mammals, birds as large as doves and apparently they include bats in their diets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Merlin (Falco columbarius) perched ~ Davis County, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Like other falcons Merlins are strong fliers, can turn very quickly and they can grab their prey in mid air.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have the best of light when I photographed the Merlin in the photo above plus the fresh snow on the mountain slope behind the bird produced a high key effect but I liked the Merlin’s pose, the eye contact and the way the branches moved through the frame.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

OnTheWingPhotography.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merlins are winter visitors in the Salt Lake Valley so I have just a few more weeks to attempt photographing them. Merlins used to be called “pigeon hawks” because their shape and flight patterns are similar to pigeons. Merlins feed on small mammals, birds as large as doves and apparently they include bats in their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/merlin-mia-mcpherson-8382.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-merlin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}