As promised elsewhere, here is the photo that represents the climax of the altercation between a red-shouldered hawk, and what the folks at the kayak rental place deem to be an immature Blue Heron.
I have a series of shots before-and-after, which tell the story - including the ensuing stand-off in which the Hawk continued to try and eat the fish, while the Heron inched closer and closer - periodically taking a swipe at the fish and Hawk.
Finally, the Heron got a little too close for comfort, and the Hawk did managed to get the fish in his claws and fly away with it, leaving the Heron and myself sitting there dumfounded.
I was literally 25 - 50 feet from them, in my kayak, beached against a fallen tree. I was using a Nikon D80 with the 70-300 VR zoom. When the Heron showed up, I zoomed out, and I think I actually shot this at about 80mm. This is cropped in showing about half the original frame. I remained zoomed out a little because I thought surely someone was going to fly away - but they remained for about 15 minutes while I continued to photograph.
Because it was dim and foggy, I had my ISO set to 800. It makes for some interesting "grain" - though I've had this enlarged to 20x30 (just wanted to see...), and it holds together pretty well. It's difficult to get a tripod in a kayak - so I'm stuck with bracing my elbows on the paddle crossed across the kayak. I've tried taking a monopod - but it doesn't really work out very well.....
Well done in a difficult situation. Love the COMP and the setting and a good job with the exposure as well. Wish of course that it was a little sharper.
Later and love, artie
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Thanks for the feedback, Arthur. The Heron's eye turned out a little sharper than the Hawk's. I think the Hawk's has some movement there. I'm also struggling a little with getting the file sizes down so that I can post them. As you can see from the copyright - the whole thing got a little softened. But the original is at 10mp in RAW format. I did digital imaging many years ago, but things have changed so much - I'm now still learning my way around histograms, etc....
The colors do look a bit overdone compared to your original. Regardless of the technical issues, this experience is one you will never forget and its situations like this that make all the time spent in the outdoors worthwhile! Thanks for sharing this with us.
Thanks for your feedback everyone. FYI - I have reposted this as a thread in the Eager to Learn critiques forum, which is probably a more appropriate forum for it. With some guidance, I've posted a less-tortured file there....
Hawk vs. Heron
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