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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0157b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0157b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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Birds were so darned slow yesterday morning in Tooele County I hadn’t even clicked my shutter after almost\u00a0three hours of looking for them. But on my way home and just before I got back onto the freeway I decided to give this adult Red-tailed Hawk on a power pole a chance to save my bacon.<\/p>\n
My purpose for this series is to illustrate some of\u00a0the challenges of photographing raptors taking off from power poles. I’ve included some images I like and others where the wires were a problem. Some of these shots could be saved by removing the wires during processing but with a single exception (the last image) I’ve applied no\u00a0Photoshop magic to any of these photos.<\/p>\n
All images are presented in the order they were taken and readers who may be curious can determine how many shots I’ve skipped between images by passing your cursor over the photos and looking at the file numbers.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0158b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0158b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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One of the common problems with shooting raptors at the moment of takeoff is underestimating the tremendous wingspan of the bird while it’s perched (I still do it far too often). That challenge is complicated but the fact that the photographer doesn’t know at what angle the bird will launch – up, down, or horizontally. This hawk took off at an upward angle and of course I clipped both wingtips.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0159b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0159b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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Still going up.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0161b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0161b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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The hawk is now flying between wires that are both above and below it (here we can’t see those below). For those shots where the wings were held largely in a horizontal position…<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0165b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0165b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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there were no wires in front of the bird.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0166b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0166b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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But when it raised its wings the wires became a bigger problem.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0168b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0168b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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Now the hawk is beginning to descend so…<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0169b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0169b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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the wire below it began to factor in. Between this image…<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0179b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0179b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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and this one I’ve left out\u00a0ten photos\u00a0mostly because the wire was in front of the bird (though I also cut off body parts in a few of those shots).<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0190b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0190b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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After the hawk cleared the lowest wire it was gliding downward with its wings in the same horizontal\u00a0position so I’ve only included one of those photos because most of them looked almost exactly the same.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-tailed-hawk-0195b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-0195b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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As it approached the bottom of its dive it raised its wings again but naturally I had very little room at the bottom and left of the frame so I’ve added canvas there for better composition.<\/p>\n
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A raptor on a pole can take off in many directions and most of them aren’t good ones for photography (butt shots, poor light angle\u00a0etc). Since poles and wires\u00a0generally run parallel to the road the photographer is (often)\u00a0shooting from it’s usually best if the bird takes off in one of the two directions the wires are running but then you have to deal with those wires in your images. It’s a conundrum.<\/p>\n
In my perfect world\u00a0power\u00a0companies would put up poles without wires but I don’t think I’ll hold my breath for that\u00a0one…<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I took exactly forty shots of this hawk during takeoff and in flight. Eleven of them made the cut to include here, for reasons both good and not so good.<\/p>\n