shutteredintentions
a photography phantasmagoria
Red Tail Hawk
You won’t often see wildlife pictures on this here blog, generally because wildlife seems to live a long way away from me.
So this picture is an anomaly. Albeit an awesome one.
I was driving my Mom home after doing a raindrop massage – scrolling through radio channels, trying not to spontaneously combust in my hotbox of a car. We turned onto the rural road that leads to the even more rural road that leads to home.
First we saw pheasants – I thought they were quail, but alas. One dude, and three ladies.
Then we drove a little farther, and I saw another largish bird shape in the next field. “Is that another pheasant?” I wondered.
It was waaay bigger than a pheasant. And as we passed I saw the hooked beak and the feathered legs, so I slammed on the brakes. I mean, how often do you come across a red tail hawk just sitting there, not 30 feet away from you?
The adventurous part of the story is when I was stopping the car while craning over my shoulder and just about piloted us into a mailbox.
Anyway, Mom grabbed my camera from the back and we swapped to the telephoto lens super fast, the spent a good half hour photographing this guy.
I think he was younger – appeared to be somewhat smaller than others I’ve seen. But who’s the bird expert? (Hint! Definitely not me!)
And it would figure, the moment I look away, he takes off.
But I got this shot too, so I’m not too sore.
I love these two pics; I enjoy pics of birds of prey any ol way.
Something must have been in the air yesterday — no pun intended.
While commuting home on my bike and jamming to the tunes on my Pod, I was attracted to a red tail which was flying alongside me. Instead of veering off and flying over the field that was to my right, he flew with me as I pedalled down the road. After a few minutes of visually keeping one another company, he decided to turn left and come behind me. For several seconds, I couldn’t see him; and my imagination had his talons hooked in my Camelback whilst he pick me up to fly me home. It wasn’t until the sight of a short, but tough, hill interrupted my head play that I realized the hawk was gone. Guess the trees on the other side of the road swallowed him up and gave him protection against such imagination.
Oh well, the sight of him still kicked ass…just like the sights of your pictures on this post.
Great capture, and the dark clouds on the second picture really is a nice look.
Yeah, I was stoked with that second capture. Generally, I move the camera when I’m trying to photograph something in motion, so the image usually turns out blurred. Happy accident, this one!