Red Shouldered Hawk #1

She now has 2 young birds to feed.

You "caught" her just at the right moment !

beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful

Keep shoot shots like this and sharing them with those of us who wish we could "be there." There's nothing wrong with provoking a little envy in fellow photographers.

You were skilled and fortunate to capture the hawk at just the right moment. She looks wonderful. Did you wash out the background a bit? It looks a bit flat and noisy. You might also play with the placement of the hawk a bit to see if a less central position would be more dynamic. Congrats.

You got this with a 200mm? Were you in a tree, or what? This is outstanding. Well, well done.

thanks

Wonderful capture.

Another winner in this series, Cary. Among my favorites.

A warm hello, David.

Cary, if you have this kind of oppertunity right off your deck, you are very lucky, indeed! This is simply outstanding! If I lived with you, I'd eat, live and breathe on your deck. What do you feed her? And why do you call her a "pet"? Was she captive raised, or simply your affectionate term for her?

Outstanding...

I feed her chicken drumsticks.

Now I understand, because you feed him/her chiken drumsticks, he/she was ready to pose for you...........! nice relationship and result! Pnina

Really great...colors...composition, d.o.f etc...

We have hawks in our area, how do you tempt them into coming close enough for a photo like this?

 

PERFECT timing to catch this wonderful pose.

thanks Regina,

 

A longer lens would have been better here than the 200mm limit of the sony cam. I had to crop to get closer and then clean the noise up with neat image.

Great timing on this one - the wings splayed like that show detail you don't usually see. I like the muted background and the nice lighting on the bird. Well done!

Very dramatic! You caught this bird at just the right moment.

This is so perfect. What a beautiful bird and a great talent. I can see why this made Photo of the week. The timing on the shot and the birds wings are truley amazing. Thanks for sharing and Congrats for a great job!!

Majestic and very timely capture....congrats on this wonderful pic--Tye

I think it's gorgeous...the background's grain (jpeg archiving?) gets to me a teeny bit, but the focus is definitely on the bird. I'm feeling the earthy colors. The fact you didn't have the most "advanced equipment" actually enhances my appreciation of this image. Furthermore, I don't see how it's cheating because the bird was fed -- is it "cheating" if you were to photograph a supermodel on a runway with a paid ticket to see her front row at the show, versus photographing her walking down a street? The bird is still a bird, whether it's stuffed, fried, computer-imaged, fed, hungry, blinking its eyes, stretching its wings...that's just my view. Not necessarily a "correct view" per se.

Absolutely fabulous!

 

Looks like a painting and I love it.

 

Advanced equipment? Better technique?

 

I will take this kind of results every time

over anything else.

 

Beautifully captured moment!

 

Vivek.

Let me say how wonderful it is to have this photo chosen for POW on photo.net

And how very lucky I am to have developed a raport with this hawk. It all started about 3 years ago. I just threw some bread over my sundeck and she came out of nowhere to pick it up. Repetition finally won her over and she started appearing in a tree, directly in front of my sundeck.

I set up the camera, pre-focus on the branch she lands on, and fire off 7 shots in speed-burst mode. I do this as she arrives and then flies off towards the food. Sometimes you get lucky and alot of the time you get nothing of merit.

 

Hope you enjoy the image and many thanks to everyone!!!

your hawk eats bread?

 

That's more amazing than the photograph!