{"id":8428,"date":"2012-10-16T07:57:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T13:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=8428"},"modified":"2012-10-16T10:46:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T16:46:34","slug":"red-tailed-hawk-with-blooming-rabbitbrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/16\/red-tailed-hawk-with-blooming-rabbitbrush\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-tailed Hawk With Blooming Rabbitbrush"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love the fall colors of the blooming rabbitbrush on Antelope Island.\u00a0 I’m always looking to photograph songbirds perched on it because it can make such an attractive\u00a0setting but for some reason they don’t often use it for a perch.<\/p>\n

But about two weeks ago I was able to get some images of this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk with blooming rabbitbrush\u00a0in the setting and even though, in many of those photos, the rabbitbrush is a little “busy” and takes attention away from the bird, I still liked the shots for a change of pace from the soft, unidentified bokeh that is often preferred in avian photography.\u00a0 Some of these shots show habitat well and sometimes that’s a good thing…<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This bird had been “sit and wait” hunting\u00a0as it was\u00a0perched very low and close to me on a rusty, metal gate when it spotted something at the\u00a0base of this rabbitbrush\u00a0and flew in for the capture.\u00a0\u00a0 At first I thought it had been successful because the hawk was “mantling” (spreading wings and tail over prey to hide it from potential competitors) but in the end it came up empty-taloned.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So it soon flew off and I was able to get some shots as it did so.\u00a0 I like the dynamic take-off posture in this image, though some may find that the relative sharpness and bright colors of the rabbitbrush in the setting detract from the bird.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0In the very next shot of the burst the wings were in the down position and hiding much of the brightest\u00a0rabbitbrush.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Two shots later the wings are again in the down position and the hawk is more isolated from the rabbitbrush.<\/p>\n

Yes, I do have\u00a0a point to make about wing positions.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Three images later, the wings are up.\u00a0\u00a0Notice that in\u00a0none of the shots were the wings in\u00a0an intermediate or horizontal position and that in all the even-numbered\u00a0shots (you’ll see the file numbers by passing your cursor over the image) the wings are up and in all of the odd-numbered shots the wings are down.<\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned before that the burst rate of my Canon 7D (8 shots per second, with a fast memory card) seems to be perfectly choreographed with the wing beat rate of a large raptor when it’s taking off.\u00a0 This is both the curse and the blessing of the 7D – a blessing when it catches wings in the up or down positions (which most photographers prefer) and a curse when it catches them in the much less desirable horizontal position.\u00a0 I’ve taken up to 8 – 10 consecutive shots of a raptor taking off where every one of the images shows the bird with its wings straight out (horizontal) – not a good thing…<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/a><\/p>\n

Because of this synchronicity, consecutive odd or even-numbered\u00a0images can be almost shockingly similar.\u00a0 At first glance these two\u00a0shots almost look like the same photo but they are consecutive even-numbered\u00a0images (7476 and 7478) – and yes, #7477 had the wings in the full down position but I clipped one of the wings in that photo.<\/p>\n

All of this is likely of little interest unless you’re a photographer but it’s something I have to pay attention to as I photograph birds in flight – particularly raptors as they’re taking off.<\/p>\n

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

I love the fall colors of the blooming rabbitbrush on Antelope Island.\u00a0 I’m always looking to photograph songbirds perched on it because it can make such an attractive\u00a0setting but for some reason they don’t often use it for a perch. But about two weeks ago I was able to get some images of this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk with blooming rabbitbrush\u00a0in the setting and even though, in many of those photos, the rabbitbrush is a little “busy” and takes attention away from the bird, I still liked the shots for a change of pace from the soft, unidentified bokeh that is often preferred in avian photography.\u00a0 Some of these shots show habitat well and sometimes that’s a good thing…   \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in This bird had been “sit and wait” hunting\u00a0as it was\u00a0perched very low and close to me on a rusty, metal gate when it spotted something at the\u00a0base of this rabbitbrush\u00a0and flew in for the capture.\u00a0\u00a0 At first I thought it had been successful because the hawk was “mantling” (spreading wings and tail over prey to hide it from potential competitors) but in the end it came up empty-taloned.     \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in So it soon flew off and I was able to get some shots as it did so.\u00a0 I like the dynamic take-off posture in this image, though some may find that the relative sharpness and bright…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"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":[906,490,452,68,907,499,451,909,908],"class_list":["post-8428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-blooming","tag-burst-rate","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-canon-7d","tag-mantling","tag-rabbitbrush","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-synchronicity","tag-wing-position"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2bW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8428","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=8428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}