![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/ferruginous-hawk-7463b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"ferruginous-hawk-7463b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nFirst I want to show you one of the photos I took of the same dark morph a week ago today. It’s a large crop because I wasn’t close to the bird. I was highly disappointed because he’s a spectacular bird and dark morphs of this species are uncommon, estimated to be significantly less than 10% of the overall population. I seldom even see a dark morph much less photograph one.<\/p>\n
It’s a long drive to get to this area but two days ago I went back looking for him but he was nowhere to be found. I wasn’t surprised by my failure to find him again but I sure was disappointed.<\/p>\n
But dammit, dark morphs are worthy of repeated long shot efforts and I’m undeniably stubborn so yesterday morning I tried again and this time I found him. I’m virtually positive it’s the same bird.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/6.3, 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 He was perched on a wooden fence post in warm light only minutes after dawn. I really<\/em> didn’t want to flush him off the post so I approached him unusually slowly and carefully, stopping to photograph him from longer distances in-between stops. These photos were taken when I was closest to him but I have many others from further away. He showed no signs of nervousness as I approached on the gravel\/dirt road.<\/p>\n It was a cold morning (I’d seen 20\u00b0 F a few minutes earlier) and as usual that helped to make him “sticky”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, 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 In all the time I spent with him he posed very little. I was hoping for a wing stretch, a rouse or maybe he might even cast a pellet but no such luck. I suspect the cold also contributed to his torpor.<\/p>\n It was at this point that my old friend Murphy paid me an unwelcome visit. I’d taken many shots of the hawk from up close with my teleconverter attached and he apparently wasn’t going to pose for me or do anything else interesting so I removed my teleconverter in case he took off. I really didn’t expect him to launch anytime soon because he’d been there so long with me relatively close and showed no signs of nervousness. But just in case he did I didn’t want to clip or cut off any body parts.<\/p>\n I’m sure you can guess the rest of this sad story.<\/p>\n Just as I was raising my lens again after swapping out my teleconverter the damn bird took off! As I had predicted he took off into the south breeze which was a perfect direction for flight shots in beautiful light. In a panic while he was in flight I tried to find him in my viewfinder and focus on him again but in the two shots where I didn’t cut off any body parts my lens was still moving relative to the bird in my attempt to catch up with him and those two shots were soft. One was horribly soft and the other wasn’t much sharper.<\/p>\n Normally my viewers would never see either one of those photos but I want to show you what I missed and why I was so mad at myself for screwing up such a great opportunity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, 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 think this could have been a pretty spectacular photo of a beautiful and unusual raptor in flight but it’s so soft it makes my eyes water as they try to accomplish the impossible task of bringing the hawk into focus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the only other dark morph Ferruginous Hawk I’ve ever photographed up close in almost 12 years of photographing birds and even this shot is a little soft. This photo was taken way back in 2013 so you can imagine how I’ve longed for another chance at a dark morph up close and in flight.<\/p>\n I keep telling myself that failures like this are just the way it goes in bird photography but so far it doesn’t seem to be helping.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the same hawk I photographed in flight from far away a week ago but I found him again yesterday morning and this time he was close. And he’s a dark morph by golly!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n