Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk Birdscape

[Loi Nguyen]

Not often that I could do a birdscape with a raptor. This is the same cooperative hawk that I posted earlier. At this point, I had spent close to an hour with him and my car battery was dead because the light had been left on. He jumped off to catch an insect and came back to this post away from the car. So I got out of the car thinking he would fly off for a BIF shot with the hills in the BG, but no, he would just turned his head back to look at me and continued to survey the field below.

1DX
100-400 Mark II @ 214mm
1/1600
f5.6
ISO-2000
HH

I should have reduced the ISO, but then a car came by and I flagged the driver for help.

Thank you for your comments in advance, much appreciated.

Loi

[dankearl]

A nice hawk on a post photo, but I would not call this a bird scape by any means, Loi.
There is nothing in focus in the foreground or background, it is a nice bokeh and goes well with the bird, but a birdscape ( or landscape)
photo it is not.....

[David Salem]

Nice shot of this good looking juve Loi. I agree with Dan that it may not constitute a real birdscape but it is a nice frame none the less. Nice detail and exposure on this guy and I like the colorful BG and distant hills.

I was about to answer your question on your last post about how I IDed the hawk as a Juvie and a Male so i figured I would on this post as it shows the whole bird.
Most hawks and falcons have their more drab first year plumage as a juvie, and then they molt into the more colorful adult plumage that they keep the rest of their lives.
First year hawks and falcons have been known for centuries as brown hawks. This is because they are overall brown in color. They molt all of their feathers every year but they grow the same adult feathers back every year, allot of times getting more color and detailed over the years. Thats how you can tell an older more mature hawk or falcon. By the look, color and condition of it's feathers and the color of it's feet and cere. On your last post the tail was not in the frame but the brown feather color was very evident. As you know in this species, the tail is red or rust colored in the adult plumage.
IDing the sex of a hawk or falcon is a bit harder unless you have been looking at them in their environment for many years. The easiest way is to see a pair of the same species together. Almost all raptors have sexual dimorphism. The female is usually about 30% bigger than the male. Being that she is bigger she also has a bigger head and beak. This is how i made the determination that the portrait of this hawk was a male. A smaller head and a little beak, the female usually has a bigger upper mandible. Hope this helps.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the topside details and the look back. good details. colors could go a bit warmer. I like the hills in the BG, the fence is still identifiable but it has been blurred to a level that's not too much distracting. I would place him a bit higher in the frame and also experiment with a vertical crop. I'd also clone out the droppings on the perch

TFS

[Loi Nguyen]

Dan, agreed that this is not a birdscape. What was I thinking?

David, Thank you for the explanation. I hadn't heard of the description "brown hawks" until now.

[William Dickson]

Very nice looking bird Loi. I also like the BG and the head turn on the bird Great capture, thanks for sharing