Harrier Hawk on Attack

[Moe Ali]

http://moesphotohobby.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/4/7/25475992/8824757_orig.jpg


The cold weather has me indoors looking at older photos. This is one I took of a Harrier Hawk as it spotted a mouse and dove for the attack. It wasn't successful in catching its prey, and so the mouse lived on for another day.

I took this photo in October while I waded around in my favourite marsh south of the city. I had the camera on manual mode and wasn't ready for this guy, so my shutter speed wasn't set for action shots. Glad one of these images came out sharp.

Shot using the Canon 7D at 420mm (1.4x + 300mm f4 L IS lens)

Camera settings:

Aperture: f5.6
Shutter: 1/640
ISO: 160
Slightly Cropped, with some editing in Photoshop.
Handheld

[Marina Scarr]

Looks like you found a gem of an image here. Love that pose. Glad you can see one of the eyes and you had great light. I think I might take a bit off of the left. I might consider taking a little off of the left and some off of the right. I like seeing the inclusion of the environment.

[Randy Stout]

Moe:;

Very dynamic pose, love the display of aerodynamics as he flares the tail to cut the forward motion and start the dive. Nicely framed by the green, yet with a small clearing below to give him a path to dive into (visually)

If the IQ will tolerate it, I could see the crops suggested by Marina.

Look forward to more gems in the future.

Cheers

Randy

[Moe Ali]

Thank you Marina and Randy.

I appreciate the feedback. I think a little more of a crop would be good, and there's enough IQ in the original RAW file. I particularly like the environment in the background and wanted to keep a little more of it in the image. I had the 7D going at high speed, this guy quickly banked and dropped, it happened so fast. Happy I got this one keeper.