Hawk

[Joseph Przybyla]

I only titled this image hawk because I am not sure what species of hawk. Any help identifying it would be appreciated. The image was captured along Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, Apopka, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED image captured at 400mm
1/1600 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +1 ISO 1600
Post processed in Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC 2018, smoothed out of focus branches in background
Cropped from horizontal to vertical for composition and presentation

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Hi Joe,

Wonderful capture of what I think is either a immature Cooper's Hawk because of the breast feather pattern and tail barring, or a immature Red-shouldered Hawk with the yellow at top of beak. Great perch, head turn looking right at you, and beautiful BG.

Geoffrey




https://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

[Graham Wilkes]

Very good image with great eye contact from the hawk and perfect background.
I think cloning out the horizontal branch and the one above would strengthen the image.
TFS

Graham

[Bill Dix]

Hi Joe. Great stare, nice BG and good exposure. I think one of his northern brethren paid a visit to my feeders several weeks ago. I had initially labeled mine an immature Cooper's, after deciding against Red-shouldered. But a Cooper's should have vertical streaks on the breast, rather than the orangy spots. I've concluded that mine (which I will post momentarily) is an immature Sharp-shinned Hawk. The scrunched down head is another clue. Look at some of the images on the Cornell website and you'll find a few that are pretty close matches. I'll be curious to see what the experts say.

[stuart wanuck]

well done good eye contact

[arash_hazeghi]

nice eye contact, goo details. I would clone out all the busy branches as they don't add anything to the frame, would move him a bit off center and also remove the magenta cast

TFS

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing, commenting, and suggesting improvements. Very much appreciated...

Here is a edit and repost reflecting the suggestions.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I really like the repost Jo, I didn't pick up on the magenta cast til it was mentioned.

[Isaac Grant]

Nice stare. That wildlife drive is nice but frustrating. So many birds but so few good angles to get them at. Nice job on this one. Repost is an improvement for sure. Color is better and losing the branches gives the image a cleaner feel. Bird is a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk.