{"id":57889,"date":"2018-04-02T05:50:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T11:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=57889"},"modified":"2018-04-02T06:35:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T12:35:28","slug":"another-encounter-with-the-very-red-red-tailed-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/02\/another-encounter-with-the-very-red-red-tailed-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Encounter With The Very Red Red-tailed Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think the plumage colors and patterns on this\u00a0hawk\u00a0are striking, especially when seen from behind.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning I had my second encounter with this bird. I’m almost certain they’re one and the same\u00a0hawk because of its distinctive red colors and plumage patterns\u00a0and both times it was in the same small area near a nest I followed last year.\u00a0We saw another Red-tail (a light morph)\u00a0nearby that may turn out to be the mate of this bird and I suspect they’re using that nest this year.<\/p>\n

Here’s the bad news: I’m beginning to think there’s a photographer’s curse on this hawk. Readers may remember my first encounter with this\u00a0bird<\/a>, posted 8 days ago when after driving so far to get there the skies were unexpectedly socked in with clouds so I\u00a0had dismal light the entire morning. Well… the same thing happened again yesterday. As expected (based on the forecast and the satellite imagery) skies were sunny most of the morning but\u00a0just prior, during and after\u00a0my time with this hawk a huge thick “cloud from hell”\u00a0followed me everywhere I went so the light\u00a0on this bird was dismal once again.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t quite as bad as it was the time before but it was\u00a0bad enough.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 1000, 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 I first trained my lens on the hawk it was perched on this lichen-covered rock and facing away from me (you’ll see one of those photos in a minute). But for this shot and the next one I caught the bird just after it turned to my left and began to take off in that direction. This is one of the most strikingly red Red-tails I’ve ever photographed.<\/p>\n

Because of the poor light I was shooting at ISO 1000 and f\/5.6 and initially I had enough shutter speed to get the entire bird sharp.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 1000, 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

But two clicks later my SS dropped to 1\/1250 (I shoot in aperture priority) so I had some pretty severe motion blur in the wingtips. The rest of my photos in the series were either too soft or I clipped or cut off body parts (I was just a little too close for flight shots).<\/p>\n

Despite the poor\u00a0light I still like the flight shots but what really took my breath away (literally) was my view of this bird while it had its back to me before it took off.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, 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

I remember saying out loud\u00a0“What a beautiful bird!” as soon as I saw it in my viewfinder. I’m far from an expert on Red-tail plumage patterns and color morphs but from this angle at least the hawk was one of the most striking of the species I’ve ever seen, much less photographed. The highly contrasting reds and near-whites on its wings when combined with the red tail of the adult made my little heart go pitter-pat. Obviously it isn’t a great shot but what a great bird.<\/p>\n

Dang, I hope I have some\u00a0decent light for my next encounter with this hawk, presuming it happens…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – Apologies for posting so many Red-tailed Hawks recently (I’m afraid that even Laura Culley is about to get tired of seeing them so often…). But I can only post what I shoot and lately that’s been Red-tails.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

I think the plumage colors and patterns on this hawk are striking, especially when seen from behind.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57891,"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":[34,452,146,3912,222,451,3932,605],"class_list":["post-57889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-aperture-priority","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-flight","tag-low-light-bird-photography","tag-motion-blur","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-settings","tag-take-off"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-8706-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-f3H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57889","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=57889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}