{"id":41939,"date":"2016-09-05T05:57:37","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T11:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41939"},"modified":"2016-09-05T05:57:37","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T11:57:37","slug":"adult-red-tailed-hawk-in-full-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/05\/adult-red-tailed-hawk-in-full-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Adult Red-tailed Hawk In Full Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think about it.<\/p>\n

In a very high percentage of raptor flight shots the bird has either just taken off or it’s\u00a0high in the sky and the\u00a0viewer is looking up at its belly. I often like both types of images and\u00a0regular readers know I have a special\u00a0affinity for take-off shots, partly because take-off\u00a0postures can be so dramatic.\u00a0And there’s good reason why most\u00a0raptor flight shots fit into one of those categories – for a\u00a0variety of reasons those types of\u00a0images of raptors are\u00a0easier to get than photos of them in full flight at or near eye\u00a0level. To capture a raptor in full flight at eye level and in a side view typically requires a technique called panning<\/a>\u00a0and it isn’t easy to maintain focus on a bird moving fast across your field of view.<\/p>\n

The best indicator that a bird is in full flight rather than having just taken off is the position of its legs and feet. The process of lift-off usually requires the bird to push off with its legs and the legs typically remain in or near “push-off position” for several wing-strokes after launch. But when airspeed and stability have been reached they tuck their legs and feet tightly up under their tail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this adult Red-tailed Hawk about a week ago near Utah’s Promontory Mountains. I actually lost focus on the bird soon after it took off but I was able to reacquire\u00a0a few seconds later. By that time it had reached sufficient airspeed to tuck its legs so it’s in what I call “full flight”.<\/p>\n

Without question I have raptor flight shots that many viewers would find more interesting than this one, especially considering the rather bland background. But for me there’s always an extra layer of appeal for an image of a majestic raptor with its legs fully tucked and in full flight.<\/p>\n

That appeal (for me)\u00a0is largely because those types of images are harder to get but not everyone will agree with that perspective\u00a0and that’s ok.<\/p>\n

Different strokes for different folks…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Think about it.<\/p>\n

In a very high percentage of raptor flight shots the bird has either just taken off or it’s high in the sky and the viewer is looking up at its belly.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41940,"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":[24,689,452,146,3095,2524,451,2742,311],"class_list":["post-41939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-adult","tag-box-elder-county","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-flight","tag-panning","tag-promontory-mountains","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-tucked-legs-and-feet","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-1907-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aUr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41939","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=41939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}