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<\/p>\nFor the past several weeks I’ve been seeing a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flying over my neighborhood, which is unusual. Usually, Cooper’s Hawks are about the only larger raptors I see in my suburban neighborhood.<\/p>\n
I live about a quarter mile from the Jordan River and I suspected that the red-tail was hanging around the riparian habitat along the river and just occasionally strayed into my neighborhood. So for the last several days I’ve searched many times for the red-tail along the river, with no luck at all.<\/p>\n
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Until early yesterday morning when I found ‘him’ on a light pole hanging over a major elevated road that runs along the river. I took this photo from the road directly below him, just to get a good look at him and document his presence. On the often-busy road I only had a few seconds to safely take the photo so I couldn’t wait for him to turn his head so there would be better light on his face.<\/p>\n
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When I came back to the area five minutes later I found him on an old utility pole next to the same road. From here he was hunting the high, steep bank of the elevated road and I was able to pull off the busy road and attempt to photograph him in flight from an adjacent city park.<\/p>\n
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Twice while I was there he took off from the pole and attempted to catch prey along the road bank. He was unsuccessful both times but both times I was able to get flight shots of him as he returned to the pole to try again.<\/p>\n
It was a long way up to the top of the pole so the first time especially, his flight angle was steep.<\/p>\n
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These first three flight shots are of him returning to the pole…<\/p>\n
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the first time.<\/p>\n
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Less than two minutes later he took off after prey again and came back to the pole empty-footed. This time he was flying almost directly toward the rising sun so much of his body was shaded.<\/p>\n
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Two frames later I got better light on him.<\/p>\n
He seemed determined to catch prey from this hunting perch so I had high hopes of eventually photographing him with prey, on the ground below the road and in flight. But circumstances and bad timing put the kibosh on those plans when…<\/p>\n
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a young man and his dogs came along. This guy was throwing sticks for his dogs and photographing them as they romped almost directly below the pole the red-tail was hunting from. So of course, the hawk vamoosed and my chances for more photos disappeared with him. I’m pretty sure the dog’s owner didn’t even know the hawk was there.<\/p>\n
I’m including this photo mostly to show my readers a small part of the steep bank of the elevated road that the hawk was hunting.<\/p>\n
Readers know that I’m not particularly fond of photos of birds in flight with plain blue skies in the background but I was still happy to get these flight shots of the red-tail that I’d been trying to find for so long.<\/p>\n
Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to Feathered Photography, so I wanted to let you know that I’m still kicking.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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For the past several weeks I’ve been seeing a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flying over my neighborhood, which is unusual. (8 photos)<\/p>\n