{"id":167663,"date":"2025-04-09T05:58:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T11:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=167663"},"modified":"2025-04-09T06:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T12:07:09","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-doing-the-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-doing-the-unexpected\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk Doing The Unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faking out the photographer.<\/p>\n

Whenever I come across two raptors perched fairly close together, but far enough apart that I can’t get both of them in frame, I always do the same thing. I take a few very quick photos of one of them and then do the same with the other one. That way, I’ve at least taken documentary photos of both birds before one or both of them took off.<\/p>\n

But things don’t always go as expected or hoped for.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

Three days ago in the west desert I found an obviously mated pair of Red-tailed Hawks perched atop a low cliff about 20′ apart from each other. I believe this bird, the one on my right, is the female of the pair.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t get both of them in the same frame so immediately after stopping my pickup I took about a half dozen quick shots of her in a burst before swinging my lens to my left and attempting to photograph the male.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

I got him in my viewfinder but before I could lock focus on him, he took off – straight up. This is the first shot I got of him.<\/p>\n

I certainly didn’t expect him to take off straight up so…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

I didn’t leave enough room in the frame up top to keep his wings in frame when they were in the vertical position.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

It was an unusual takeoff for two reasons. He took off vertically and,,,<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

it immediately became apparent that his intention was to only fly a few feet to my right – to the female about 20’away. I instantly had hopes that he was about to mate with her, even though it’s fairly late in the season for that. I suspect most red-tails are already on eggs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

This flight posture indicates that he’s already in pre-landing mode,<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

While looking through my viewfinder I couldn’t see the female but I believe it was immediately after I took this photo that the female took off, foiling any plans he might have had for mating.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

A few frames later he’d switched from landing mode to acceleration mode, including tucking his legs and feet. I got quite a few photos of him in flight but when I lost him in the frame and looked up from my viewfinder, both hawks were disappearing behind one of the taller cliffs. I never again saw either one.<\/p>\n

So much for the best laid plans, of the photographer and possibly of the male red-tail.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Faking out the photographer. (8 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167669,"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":[6,334,450],"tags":[7784,311,533],"class_list":["post-167663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-red-tailed-hawk-in-flight","tag-utah-2","tag-west-desert"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-7599-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-HCf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167663","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=167663"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167693,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167663\/revisions\/167693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}