![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/red-tailed-hawk-6096-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-6096-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n1\/5000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon 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 female rufous Red-tailed Hawk I’ve mentioned twice in recent blog posts. Two days ago she perched on this rock while her mate was perched nearby.\u00a0Neither bird was very close to me so these shots have been cropped moderately.<\/p>\n Both birds were relaxed and minding their own business when her demeanor suddenly changed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n She turned on the rock and stared at something in the sky to the east that I couldn’t see through the roof of my pickup. My first thought was that the focus of her attention might be her mate coming in (I hadn’t paid much attention to him as I watched her through my lens) but almost immediately I cast that possibility aside because she was clearly agitated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/5000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n She took off to challenge the intruder, whatever it might be. Notice how her focus of attention never wavered in this shot and the following two.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/5000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n I deliberately cropped this image to include all of her shadow on the rock that had been her perch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n Obviously in this photo I didn’t have enough room above the bird for a decent composition but I wanted to include it to show that her focus on the apparent intruder continued, as it did in the next 13 shots in the burst that were all soft (dammit!) so I haven’t included any of them. I’ll blame that on my lack of mobility after recent surgery. Excuses, excuses!<\/p>\n I didn’t know what caused all the excitement until the intruder passed over my pickup and finally became visible to the west.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n It turned out to be this Golden Eagle. The nest of the pair of red-tails was nearby so I’m sure that figured into the equation of the intensity of their response. Partly because of their steep and awkward angle I never did get any shots that included more than one of the three birds as they skirmished in the air…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n but this is the female red-tail as she was closing in on the eagle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/7.1 ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n And here’s the eagle again as it tried to evade both aggressive hawks. All three birds flew overhead for a while as they skirmished but eventually the eagle had enough and headed south with the hawks in hot pursuit. I drove around the side of a hill to see if I could find them again but all three were either long gone or had landed in an area where I couldn’t find them. So eventually I drove down the road to look for more birds.<\/p>\n This is typical behavior for red-tails when other buteos invade their nesting territory. Here’s what Cornell’s Birds of North America Online (a pay site) says about the behavior in red-tails.<\/p>\n It may be a fairly common behavior but I rarely see it when Golden Eagles are involved so it was pretty exciting for me.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – WordPress apparently didn’t send out my link email to subscribers this morning. I don’t know what the hell’s going on… Edit: The email just now came in, very late but it’s finally been delivered.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Needless to say she wasn’t happy about the intrusion.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n