{"id":116938,"date":"2022-08-20T05:54:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T11:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=116938"},"modified":"2022-08-20T07:55:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T13:55:39","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-a-sideways-takeoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/20\/red-tailed-hawk-a-sideways-takeoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk – A Sideways Takeoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, another Red-tailed Hawk. But this takeoff and early flight are quite different from anything else I’ve posted recently.<\/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

Five days ago I found this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk on a lofty perch as ‘he’ was scanning the flats below him for prey. For this shot I deliberately placed him in the upper right part of the frame to allow for this somewhat unconventional composition, which I think works well since he’s looking down the cliffside at a steep angle. He was pretty relaxed up there, as suggested by his one-footed stance.<\/p>\n

When he eventually took off he surprised me by taking off sideways, which gave me some flight shots that are somewhat unusual due to his angled body positions.<\/p>\n

The following eight photos are sequential without any skips.<\/p>\n

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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

His asymmetrical wing position at this point in his takeoff gave me the first hint that he’d be taking off sideways, but of course I didn’t realize it at the time because it happened so fast.<\/p>\n

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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

I’ve always liked photos like this one with the wings spanning the frame from corner to diagonal corner, probably in part because I get them so rarely.<\/p>\n

Some photographers have been known to misleadingly rotate their images to achieve this effect so I must not be the only one who likes this type of photo. Birds always keep their head level in flight, even when the rest of their body is at a very different angle, so flight shots that have had sneaky, dishonest rotation are often easy to spot.<\/span><\/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

The downstroke, providing acceleration and lift.<\/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

His sideways body angle is becoming even more exaggerated but his head is still level.<\/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

I knew I’d have to get at least one shot with his nictitating membrane closed. I just wish it hadn’t been this one.<\/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

I’ve deliberately cropped this photo to give us one last look at the rock he took off from. He still hasn’t traveled very far.<\/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

Gaining speed and beginning to level out a little.<\/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

After this photo I got ten more sharp shots of him in flight (two with clipped wings and one with his membrane closed) but this is the last one I’ll include because he transitioned to more typical, more level flight.<\/p>\n

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As I mentioned in a previous post, this bird was one of about 30 Red-tailed Hawks I saw that day and the vast majority of them were juveniles. Yes, I’m very glad that some of them provided me with interesting photo-ops but the fact that red-tails seem to have had a very productive breeding season pleases me far more.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Yes, another Red-tailed Hawk. But this takeoff and early flight are quite different from anything else I’ve posted recently. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,16,450],"tags":[6253,452,768,190,6490,451,6489,311],"class_list":["post-116938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-birds-keeping-their-head-level","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-immature","tag-juvenile","tag-nictitating-membrane-closed","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-sideways-takeoff-and-flight","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/red-tailed-hawk-2295-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-uq6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116938"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117009,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116938\/revisions\/117009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}