{"id":42242,"date":"2016-09-21T06:12:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T12:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=42242"},"modified":"2016-09-21T07:10:17","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T13:10:17","slug":"an-extremely-tolerant-red-tailed-hawk-a-photo-of-mine-in-audubon-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/21\/an-extremely-tolerant-red-tailed-hawk-a-photo-of-mine-in-audubon-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"An Extremely Tolerant Red-tailed Hawk (+ a photo of mine in Audubon Magazine)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Red-tailed Hawks become quite tolerant of human activities but for me this one stood out.<\/p>\n

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\"red-tailed-hawk-3786b-ron-dudley\"1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I photographed the young bird last week near the continental divide between Montana and Idaho as it hunted from a fence post. One of the things I enjoy about photographing birds in this area is the vast wide-open spaces in wild country that often allow me to get bird images that don’t include unnatural elements – signs of the “hand of man”. But Red-tailed Hawks are “sit and wait” hunters that prefer to\u00a0sit on elevated perches like fence posts and power poles and that tendency often stymies my efforts for natural images. But I’ve learned to tolerate fence posts in my images because of the relatively low angle and there’s less chance of getting obtrusive\u00a0wires in my photos than there is with power poles.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0there’s something else unnatural in the image – those two horizontal darker lines going through the image at top and bottom. Any guesses as to what they are?<\/p>\n

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\"red-tailed-hawk-3793-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

They’re the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 15!<\/p>\n

This bird was hunting amazingly close to the freeway and even though there’s little traffic that time of morning (often a full minute or two goes by between vehicles) this bird wasn’t even phased by the occasional noisy truck.\u00a0In this case it’s an 18-wheeler traveling at 75 mph (they all go that fast or faster in this area) so it made a lot of noise but the bird paid it no attention.<\/p>\n

But you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet! This big rig was in the far\u00a0southbound lane…<\/p>\n

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\"red-tailed-hawk-3812-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

but the hawk\u00a0didn’t even flinch when one of these huge noisy trucks came by in the closer northbound lane. The noise, commotion and air blast\u00a0when one\u00a0or more of these big rigs comes by are intense and I was surprised the hawk was willing to put up with it at such close proximity. I know I wouldn’t be able to (I was significantly further away and shooting with a super-telephoto lens).<\/p>\n

Photographers might want to take note of the fairly dramatic drop in shutter speed in the last two images as more and more of the background became dominated by the dark truck tires and shadows. That’s just one of those things that happens when you shoot in aperture priority<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I figure there’s several reasons why this bird was so tolerant:<\/p>\n