Red-tailed Hawk Lift-off Sequence
This past fall I spent several days photographing a couple of juvenile Red-tailed Hawks on Antelope Island. I suspect they were siblings as they seemed to enjoy each others company, though one of them was significantly more skittish than the other. This one was the more cooperative of the two. I enjoy the challenge of lift-off sequences. I usually consider myself lucky if I can get 2-3 sharp shots with poses I like before losing focus on the bird but this time I did better than usual. There won’t be much “narration” here, just a series of images as the hawk took off after prey. Some of the shots are a little sharper than others but I like seeing the entire sequence – “warts” and all. Techs for all these images were identical – 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in. Moment of lift-off. I like the splayed feet. Here the nictitating membrane is partially closed. Compositionally the left wing is too tight at the top of this image. I could easily add canvas up there and I might. I like how they splay their tail during the wing down-beat at take-off. Normally I do very little cloning but in this case I’d probably remove the stem under the bird if I chose to print this image. I did add a little canvas at the bottom of this shot. These last two images are very similar but I include them to…