![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/red-tailed-hawk-8957-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-8957-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Two days ago I was watching a Red-tailed Hawk nest in northern Utah that I’ve been keeping an eye on since early spring (from a respectful distance of course and I was in my pickup on a road). There are three chicks in the nest and the parent I believe to be the adult female was in the nest and feeding bits of what appeared to be a rabbit to a couple of the youngsters when\u00a0her mate\u00a0landed on a distant rock. I thought he might have more\u00a0prey for the chicks so I kept my eye on him and actually had my lens on him when he took off toward the nest.<\/p>\n Immediately after liftoff I could see that he did have prey and it wasn’t long before I was fairly confident that the prey…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n was a duckling. There are several nearby places where ducks are found and red-tails are known to take birds of a variety of\u00a0species and\u00a0sizes when opportunity presents itself, even though this is one of the first times I’ve seen a red-tail with any kind of\u00a0bird as prey.\u00a0In my experience their prey has almost invariably\u00a0been small rodents,\u00a0the occasional small rabbit or a snake.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n It was obvious from the get-go that he was headed toward the nest to feed his youngsters\u00a0and since I was already\u00a0in that general area I had quite a few opportunities to photograph him in flight. Naturally I screwed some of them up (soft, clipped body parts etc.) but even though he was far away at the beginning I laid on my shutter button because a duckling as prey was so interesting to me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n When he got significantly closer I did get a little\u00a0better detail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n His angle of approach increased as he approached the nest and he began to call out to his family, apparently to announce his impending arrival with breakfast.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Here he’s about to land on the nest where three chicks and his mate await him (one of the youngsters is hidden behind the female on the back\u00a0left). The oldest, most independent chick is the one on the right – that bird feeds independently but the female is in the process of tearing off bits of rabbit (I think it was rabbit) and feeding them to the two younger siblings.<\/p>\n This nest setting is difficult for photography because it’s quite contrasty with shadows and light\u00a0and the hawks and the rocks are quite similar in color so they can be hard to distinguish from each other. But it does illustrate how cryptic the birds are on the nest and that’s a good thing for them. I can attest to the fact that they’re quite difficult to spot unless you know where to look.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n