{"id":27683,"date":"2014-11-03T04:49:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T11:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=27683"},"modified":"2014-11-03T04:49:01","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T11:49:01","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-negotiating-obstacles-at-take-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/red-tailed-hawk-negotiating-obstacles-at-take-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk Negotiating Obstacles At Take-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m often surprised and impressed by the dexterity and athleticism of larger raptors as they take off through a maze of tree branches or other obstructions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this dark morph Red-tailed Hawk last week at Farmington Bay as it rested on an habitual perch.\u00a0 Usually when raptors take off from this very spot they turn around first and fly away from me through the open space you see behind\u00a0the bird but this time\u00a0it surprised me…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by launching mostly in my direction where it had to negotiate a variety of branches and twigs before breaking out into the open.\u00a0 Here it is about to pass through the diagonal open space created by the two\u00a0branches running from lower left to upper right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It did so by making sure its wings were\u00a0close to\u00a0its body when it\u00a0went through that space.\u00a0 \u00a0Next it had to negotiate the jumble of vertical twigs just in front of and slightly below its face.\u00a0 Here it used some creativity…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0by bringing its right foot forward and using it to grasp some of those twigs\u00a0and push them out of the way as it passed by.\u00a0 I suspect this also might have given the bird some extra lift as it pushed off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Notice that both wings are conveniently in the perfect position at precisely the best moment\u00a0to clear the twigs on both the left and the right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0As soon as\u00a0the\u00a0bird\u00a0broke into the clear its wings went horizontal…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon 100-400 @ 250mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

and the hawk continued on its way unobstructed.<\/p>\n

I often see larger raptors that appear to be looking around and planning their escape from perches like this one but I’m not sure whether actual step by step\u00a0planning is occurring or not.\u00a0 Perhaps there’s little or no planning involved and they simply rely on instinct, athleticism and incredible reaction time and reflexes\u00a0to negotiate the obstacles as they approach them.<\/p>\n

Either way, I’m suitably\u00a0impressed.<\/p>\n

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

I’m often surprised and impressed by the dexterity and athleticism of larger raptors as they take off through a maze of tree branches or other obstructions.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27687,"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":[334,395,450],"tags":[452,1008,451],"class_list":["post-27683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/red-tailed-hawk-4558-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7cv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27683","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=27683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}