![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/red-tailed-hawk-0285-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-0285-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nYesterday morning in the Wasatch Mountains I photographed a grand total of three birds, all of them Red-tailed Hawks. One was in poor light in\u00a0deep shade and I made an embarrassing rookie mistake with another\u00a0but I had some success with this juvenile.<\/p>\n
I got 25 shots of the hawk as it took off and flew toward me but I butchered\u00a0a fair number of them so these are what\u00a0I judge to be\u00a0the best ten of the bunch. I’m including several with clipped wings but they aren’t clipped severely. All ten photos are presented in the order they were taken.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 It was perched on a hill above me. Here its wings are raised because it’s turning on the perch just\u00a0prior to\u00a0takeoff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, 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 Yup, I clipped a few pixels off of that left wing. Damn, they come up high and I thought I allowed for\u00a0them too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, 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 was surprised when it took off coming toward me and…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 continued in that direction without…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/5000, f\/7.1, 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 veering off very far in any direction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 Some of these poses\u00a0are similar but with birds you don’t get to pick their flight postures. Or the precise moment your shutter fires in a burst.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/7.1, 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 often clipped a wing or two when they were raised\u00a0so I was happy to avoid it in this shot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 don’t think the hawk was watching me. Instead\u00a0it seemed to be focused on something over my right shoulder but it didn’t fly in the direction it was looking so it must not have been potential prey. The bird looked in that direction for the entire series and that was a stroke of luck for me because it provided good light on its eye and the side of the face we see.<\/p>\n If it had been looking straight ahead the side of the face we could see best (the left side) would have been shaded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 By now It was getting so close I had very little wiggle room left to right. This shot is full frame (uncropped)\u00a0horizontally so I was lucky to only clip the tips of three feathers on the left wing. This\u00a0flight posture\u00a0and angle on the bird always reminds me of an incoming B-52 with its flaps down.<\/p>\n Because of the completely horizontal wing position I chose a pano crop for this image but I do wish I had more room up top.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, 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 This is the last unclipped shot I got before the bird passed overhead only slightly to my left. Even now I don’t know for sure what it was watching so intently but it may have been another hawk that had been nearby just before this bird landed on its perch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I’m unusually fond of this bird because it saved both my\u00a0morning and my bacon\u00a0after a particularly stupid mistake in my part a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\n I’m in the habit of checking my camera settings and lens switches before I leave the house in the morning to make sure they’re set on my “default settings” for birds in flight in the light and conditions\u00a0I anticipate at dawn. And I double-check and fine tune\u00a0them when I get to my shooting site so I always know what my starting point is and don’t have to take time to\u00a0think about it\u00a0or change settings (theoretically at least)\u00a0when I get my first bird in the viewfinder. With birds, especially in flight, every split-second counts.<\/p>\n But yesterday\u00a0I forgot to check my lens limiter switch and that made me miss an entire takeoff series of my first bird of the morning,\u00a0a Red-tailed Hawk taking off from a post at eye level in good light. That switch was set to focus only on objects from 3.7 to 10 meters away and the hawk was definitely further than that from me so my lens wouldn’t focus on the perched bird. And it took off before I figured out what the hell was going on.<\/p>\n I cussed a blue streak and my butt is still sore from the kicking I gave it. I guess I’ll never reach the age or the level of experience (or whatever combination\u00a0it takes) to stop making rookie mistakes.<\/p>\n On the other hand, a few failures sure make it feel good on those occasions when\u00a0I don’t screw up.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m unusually fond of this bird because it saved both my morning and my bacon after a particularly stupid mistake in my part a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/red-tailed-hawk-0291-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-0291-ron-dudley\\"")
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