Northern Harrier

This bird was coming in for a landing but changed its mind at the last second. Background is pond reflections.

There were two dead, frozen fish near this pond that some of the harriers would pick at occasionally. They'd been there for most of the week and it's my presumption that they were there naturally as refuge managers haven't yet done the fish kill to destroy the damaging and invasive carp.

7D, 1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, shot from pickup window on 1/2/13, cropped to 66% of original image, sharpened bird, no additional processing or adjustments, natural light, no bait, no decoy, not set up or called in

Larger version provided

Comments/critique appreciated

Update (1/7/13 @ 6:47pm) - I just now learned that one of the “fish” I mentioned above turned out to be a chicken that someone had obviously used to bait eagles and maybe harriers. Of the two “fish” I mentioned above, one was obviously a fish but from my vantage point I could only see pink flesh and assumed it to be another fish. Instead it was a damned chicken.

Here's how I found out... http://utahbirders.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-prey-item-for-northern-harrier.html?m=1

These baiters make me so angry I could spit! And worse...