Red-tailed Hawk take off

[Brian Barcelos]

Found this juvenile Red-tail sitting lonely in a tree so I decided to keep him company. Waited almost two hours for him to take off and this is the only one that is in focus. Definitely need to replace my lens, I loose so many in these situations because of the super slow auto focus.

His crop looked as if he had swallowed a balloon and his talons were still bloodied. Cleaned up some twigs directly in front of him and around his tail to show him off better but wanted to show his environment also a bit. Hope it's not too busy. Thanks for looking

Canon EOS 50D
Aperture-Priority AE
Tv 1/1000
Av 10.0
Evaluative Metering
Exposure Comp -2/3
ISO Speed 400
Tamron 200-500mm
Focal Length 200mm
Hand held
70/75% FF

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Wow this is not an easy image to capture Brian and your timing was excellent with wonderful action and eye contact. Really like your composition too. Well worth the wait !!!! Congratulations.

[denise ippolito]

Brian, I think your timing was really good. Not easy to do as Judy mentioned. I like the image design with the tree branches. I might run some NR and tone down the blue BG if it were mine.

[Harshad Barve]

Agree with Denise , tone down the BG and you have winner here
TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice one Brian, the BG branches don't bother me much but the twigs in the upper right that have blocked the wing tips are a bit distracting. I would also sharpen up the hawk. TFS

[James Salywoda]

Nice takeoff pose Brian nicely done...