{"id":91069,"date":"2020-11-06T05:48:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T12:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=91069"},"modified":"2020-11-06T07:12:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T14:12:13","slug":"the-beginning-of-an-epic-13-minute-red-tailed-hawk-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/06\/the-beginning-of-an-epic-13-minute-red-tailed-hawk-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beginning Of An Epic 13 Minute Red-tailed Hawk Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning I was at the right place at the right time when all hell broke loose. Today’s post is only a preview for reasons I’ll explain below.<\/p>\n

It had been a slow morning for birds so when I spotted an immature Red-tailed Hawk on a nearby utility pole I watched it through my lens for a while. I did so mostly out of curiosity because it had its back to me so even takeoff shots didn’t look promising.<\/p>\n

Suddenly and without warning another red-tail that I didn’t even know was in the area swooped in and attacked the hawk I’d been watching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The bird on the left, the one I’d been watching, turned on its perch to meet the attacker coming in from the right. This is the precise moment of impact. I got several shots of them locked in a death grip near the top of the perch before they fell spiraling to the ground, still locked together.<\/p>\n

They continued to fight on the ground for nearly 13 minutes before it was over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this large crop of the same image we more clearly see that they’d already locked talons. I can’t even imagine the speed, agility and accuracy required to successfully complete this double defensive talon-locking maneuver. Maybe you had to be there and witness it to fully appreciate how incredibly fast it all went down.<\/p>\n

Obviously I had no idea what I’d captured until I reviewed some of my images at home.<\/p>\n

I took many hundreds of photos of these birds while they were fighting for 13 minutes so it goes without saying that I haven’t yet had time to carefully review them all, much less get them culled, and that’s why today’s post is only a preview.. I hope to publish a more comprehensive post of the encounter with many more photos in the coming days, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Based on what I’ve seen so far it should be worth the wait.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Yesterday morning I was at the right place at the right time when all hell broke loose.<\/p>\n

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