While cruising the back roads of Glacier County, Montana two days ago we came across this Swainson’s Hawk hunting grasshoppers from an old fence post. Hunting is easy now because it’s harvest time up here and the huge grasshoppers are everywhere – as evidenced by the colorful and greasy windshields of almost every vehicle you see.
1/4000, f/6.3, iso 500, 500 f/4
When the bird seemed about to take off I made one of those split-second decisions that every bird photographer is faced with. Since it looked like the hawk might launch at a 90 degree angle to my position (and stay the same distance from me for the first few flight strokes) I decided to prefocus on the bird and then not attempt to actively maintain focus in flight for fear of having focus lock on to the background instead of the bird. This time it worked…
1/4000, f/6.3, iso 500, 500 f/4
The bird begins to launch.
1/4000, f/6.3, iso 500, 500 f/4
The beginning of my burst caught the hawk in one of those dynamic, stretched-out postures that I like. As you can see the bird lost a feather as it took off.
1/4000, f/6.3, iso 500, 500 f/4
By the next wing stroke it was already to the next fence post.
I got several more sharp shots as the bird passed to my left but of course the further it flew the less eye contact I had so the early shots were the best of the bunch.
The Swainson’s Hawks up here are gorging themselves on grasshoppers right now – a good thing to do in preparation for their upcoming migration.
Ron
Beautiful Hawk I did a report
Spectacular images… Such a beautiful raptor. I’m ever-in-awe of these birds’ musculature.
Thank you Christina.
How incredible. These are just beautiful shots. That stretch…
Thanks Elephant’s Child. I liked that stretch also.
How would it be to broad jump like that… Beautiful bird, beautiful series. Looks like it might be mixing in an occasional mammal from the looks of it’s feet. Did you have the ISO cranked up in general due to the time of day, or specifically to enable a high shutter speed for the anticipated take off? The coolest Buteo IMHO.
Made me smile Mike – it does look like a broad jump. And you’re right, at least some of the Swainson’s up there were eating small rodents (based on the pellets we saw them regurgitate). I’ll be doing a post soon regarding those pellets.
ISO 500 is my “default” ISO setting with the 7D because I’m virtually always looking for action shots and I find the noise at that setting to be acceptable. I didn’t need 1/4000 sec here and probably should have been at a lower ISO but I’ll usually err in favor of shutter speed (and slightly more noise) when I’m shooting birds. When it looks like my subject will remain static for a while I crank the ISO down (if I remember to do so) but I sure have a lot of blurry shots of birds who took off unexpectedly…
Beautiful shots, pretty bird, and I love that it is eating grasshoppers because they are my least favorite insect!
The number of grasshoppers up there this summer is amazing Tana – an abundance of food for the Swainson’s.
Great series of the Swainson’s, Ron.
Thanks Bob.