{"id":76132,"date":"2019-09-21T05:47:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T11:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=76132"},"modified":"2019-09-21T08:12:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T14:12:27","slug":"wet-red-tailed-hawk-perched-taking-off-and-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/21\/wet-red-tailed-hawk-perched-taking-off-and-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Wet Red-tailed Hawk Perched, Taking Off And In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waterlogged or not “he” lifted off just fine.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 1600, 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

You’ve seen this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk before. I photographed him in the mountains just over a week ago and then posted some photos<\/a> of him as he ate a vole on a different perch and then took off after another presumed vole (which he missed). These photos were taken a little later the same morning after at least two attempts at prey. After chasing after several voles in the long grass that was wet from an earlier rain the hawk was wet too, as evidenced by his obviously wet lower belly and droopy wings.<\/p>\n

The lighting was low beneath the overcast skies so I really cranked up my ISO to get more shutter speed. Poor light and high ISO’s are definitely not a recipe for high image quality but I still think these photos turned out reasonably well given the conditions.<\/p>\n

After this shot I removed my teleconverter to give me more room in the frame in case he took off. He did.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll include three consecutive photos taken during takeoff and just after. The leaning branch behind him and to the left was a bother in all three of them because I think it’s a little distracting but I was happy to get him sharp in all three in this low light.<\/p>\n

One thing I often notice when birds, raptors in particular, take off is how they use their tails for additional lift. With their wings raised and just prior to leaving the perch their tail is raised and not flared but…<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

as their wings come down they flare their tail and bring it down quickly too, providing additional lift above and beyond that provided by the wings. Buteos are large and relatively heavy birds so every bit of lift helps, especially at that critical moment. I imagine it helps with their body angle in flight also.<\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In this last shot I didn’t have much room on the left for composition purposes so the bird is nearly centered in the frame. I think the effort, strain and concentration required for liftoff is well illustrated in this photo.<\/p>\n

Most photos of buteos I’ve taken and posted this past summer have been of red-tails because Swainson’s Hawks have been scarce but I’m hoping it will be a good winter for Rough-legged Hawks to make up for it.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen reports that they’re already headed my way.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Waterlogged or not “he” lifted off just fine.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76135,"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":[334,450],"tags":[452,4745,146,4743,190,4744,451,2738,4746,311],"class_list":["post-76132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-dynamics-of-takeoff","tag-flight","tag-immaature","tag-juvenile","tag-low-light-conditions","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-takeoff","tag-use-of-tail-for-takeoff","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/red-tailed-hawk-4489-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-jNW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76132","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=76132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}