![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/red-tailed-hawk-9179-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-9179-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWith ‘the hand of man’ and without.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This is our old friend, the unusually dark juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, taking off from yet another rocky outcrop 13 days ago. You’ll remember that ‘he’d’ been practicing his landings at the end of repeated short flights so I had many opportunities to photograph his takeoffs and landings. But this takeoff wasn’t for a practice landing – this time he took a long flight, though I don’t know where he went.<\/p>\n I’ve posted several photos similar to this one recently so maybe readers have had their fill of photos of red-tails taking off from rocks. But the way I look at it, this shot and the next one deserve to be seen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Several frames later I got another shot of him I like, even though the background is nothing more than homogenous blue sky. After this photo he was past me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 49 minutes later that same morning I got a series of takeoff and flight shots of a juvenile red-tail that I believe to be the sibling of this unusually dark one. And this time the takeoff scenario was very different.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n The presumed sibling was perched on a very large wooden beam and as soon as I pulled up on ‘her’ I could tell she was about to take off. As a result, I had to rush this shot so she isn’t sharp. But I wanted to include it because it shows her looking down the length of the beam that she was about to use almost like a runway.<\/p>\n She took off a split-second after I took this shot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n And yes, she’s headed almost straight down the ‘runway’.<\/p>\n This photo and the next one appeal to me (unexpectedly) because the massive wooden beam running almost from frame edge to frame edge is so very different from the photos I usually post of hawks taking off from natural perches. “Different” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” but in this case, for my tastes, it does. Especially because…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n she continued to fly down the length of the long beam as she gathered speed, as if she really was using it as a runway. I got many other sharp shots of her in flight but most of them don’t include that massive old beam so I think they’re kind of boring in comparison.<\/p>\n Years ago I wouldn’t have posted these last three shots because I was typically disdainful of the ‘hand of man’ in my photos. For better or for worse, I’ve come a long way, baby.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With ‘the hand of man’ and without. (5 photos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/red-tailed-hawk-9187-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-9187-ron-dudley\\"")
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