Cold eyed killer....

[dankearl]

Redtail Hawk, taken this morning. He caught and swallowed whole, a female goldfinch.
I have entire sequence, the capture and swallow.. it took seconds, I have never seen a hawk
swallow a bird whole.
Bad light, high iso, I still thought it was cool..
D500, 420mm (300 w/ 1.4), f4, 1/640, iso4500
PP in Capture/Affinity
HawkSwallow.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=191043&stc=1&d=1622745401)

[Wayne Niz]

Wow. fantastic, please share the sequence, congrats we all dream of opportunities like this well done Dan

[dankearl]

Quick rough jpegs for interest. mods can delete if they want
The catch and the final gulp.

HawkSwallow 1.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=191044&stc=1&d=1622746628)HawkSwallow3.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=191045&stc=1&d=1622746654)

[Arthur Morris]

Yes to a cool series. Hh and IQ held up well for the OP. Bad luck on the perch.

with love, artie

[John Mack]

Nice to see the sequence of shots here. The perch is what it is.

[Kurt Bowman]

Thanks for sharing the sequence! I like the impact of this image. I do wish you had a touch more DOF, but doesn't look like it was much of a choice since you were already at ISO 4500 and only 1/640 SS.

[Dorian Anderson]

That's a pretty sweet encounter, and that stare in the first shot is pretty money. Memorable more for the action than the techs (because of the light), but still a really
cool encounter to memorialize.

[arash_hazeghi]

you made the best out of the situation, nice behavior captured I think processing can be improved but not significantly. feel bad for the prey but such is nature

TFS