{"id":9399,"date":"2012-11-24T07:27:32","date_gmt":"2012-11-24T14:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=9399"},"modified":"2012-11-24T09:47:50","modified_gmt":"2012-11-24T16:47:50","slug":"juvenile-red-tailed-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/24\/juvenile-red-tailed-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

For several days early\u00a0last month I was able to photograph this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk (and occasionally its apparent sibling) while it was “sit and wait” hunting for\u00a0voles\u00a0from elevated rocks on Antelope Island.\u00a0 The first six images I’ve presented here were all taken on the same morning.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1,\u00a0ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Many of these shots were taken during or just after take-off and you’ll notice that\u00a0the bird was flying to my left in all six\u00a0images taken that morning.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s due to the “lay of the land” and the fact that the rocks this bird was hunting from were angled on the side of the mountain in such a way that the hawk was always hunting an area to my left.\u00a0 This is one of the few times the bird took off when it wasn’t after prey.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When the hawk had spotted prey before it took off it never took its eyes off the quarry as it was going in, so I normally wouldn’t get direct eye contact.\u00a0 This bird was very close when it took off – you’ll notice from my techs that I’d removed my tc and the\u00a0hawk was still quite large in the frame.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It was somewhat problematic when there were rocks directly behind the perch because the bird wasn’t well separated from the dark background when it took off.\u00a0 I liked this shot anyway because of the dynamic take-off posture.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I enjoy these dark rocks as perches.\u00a0 I think they’re aesthetically pleasing and…<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

when they’re well isolated from the background it makes it easier to keep focus-lock on the hawk after it takes off.\u00a0 This shot was taken two clicks\u00a0after the previous image, during the same take-off.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0As you can tell from the position of the feet, this bird is in full flight, rather than soon after take-off.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The next morning I was lucky enough to find what I believe to be the same hawk hunting in the same general area.\u00a0 But this time it occasionally took off to my right.\u00a0 Sometimes the perch would still be in the image..<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0but other times I was able to keep focus locked onto the bird long enough\u00a0to get a clean background.\u00a0 I like both types of shots.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Habitat can be a little messy at times\u00a0but here I don’t think the spikey plants in the background are an issue because they’re behind the bird and\u00a0I enjoy the natural context they add to\u00a0the image.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I thought I’d include this\u00a0photo to illustrate one of the problems of shooting flight shots among these rocks.\u00a0 When the rocks are very close to the bird in the background it\u00a0can be\u00a0problematic for two reasons: 1). it\u00a0becomes\u00a0challenging to keep focused on the bird because autofocus wants to lock on to the background (especially when it’s a head-on\u00a0flight shot like this one)\u00a0and 2). the dark, relatively sharp (in focus)\u00a0rocks make it difficult for the dark hawk to stand out against the background.\u00a0 But I still think it’s an interesting image.<\/p>\n

This bird\u00a0and its sibling\u00a0are still hanging around but\u00a0their hunting area has become much more dispersed and as they mature they seem to be significantly\u00a0more skittish and difficult to approach.\u00a0 So I’m happy to have had my “up close and personal” time with these\u00a0hawks when I did, because I’ve had very little luck with them since.<\/p>\n

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

For several days early\u00a0last month I was able to photograph this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk (and occasionally its apparent sibling) while it was “sit and wait” hunting for\u00a0voles\u00a0from elevated rocks on Antelope Island.\u00a0 The first six images I’ve presented here were all taken on the same morning.   \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1,\u00a0ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Many of these shots were taken during or just after take-off and you’ll notice that\u00a0the bird was flying to my left in all six\u00a0images taken that morning.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s due to the “lay of the land” and the fact that the rocks this bird was hunting from were angled on the side of the mountain in such a way that the hawk was always hunting an area to my left.\u00a0 This is one of the few times the bird took off when it wasn’t after prey.     \u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, natural light, not baited, set up or called in When the hawk had spotted prey before it took off it never took its eyes off the quarry as it was going in, so I normally wouldn’t get direct eye contact.\u00a0 This bird was very close when it took off – you’ll notice from my techs that I’d removed my tc and the\u00a0hawk was still quite large in the frame.     \u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in It was somewhat problematic when there were rocks directly behind the…<\/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":[334,337,450],"tags":[31,454,452,146,147,996,178,190,451,605],"class_list":["post-9399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-diurnal-raptors","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-autofocus","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-flight","tag-focus","tag-habitat","tag-hunting","tag-juvenile","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-take-off"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2rB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9399","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=9399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}