Red-tailed Hawk

[Duane Noblick]

I spent close to three hours observing/photographing this young Red-tailed Hawk hunt at the place I frequent yesterday but it came up short in the hunting department unfortunately. I have mixed feelings about the bg.

Canon 7D, 500mm f/4L, 1/640" @ f/5.6, ISO 400, Partial metering, manual mode

[Gary Esman]

Sweat light, sharp bird, nice catch light, great expression, raised foot. Great habitat shot. The background is busy but being close to the same color as the hawk it kind of pulling attention away from him. Some things you just can not change. TFS

Gary.

[Tony Whitehead]

Great pose with the raised foot, Duane. I love the BG on the right but not so much the dark branch behind the bird - was there any chance of moving a little to the left to get the light more behind you and more of the more distant BG?

[Ryan Schain]

Cool shot. I would have liked a better angle but what can you do. I actually don't mind the background that much, and agree about the raised foot.

This appears to actually be a young Red-shouldered Hawk, a better bird.

Ryan

[Dan Busby]

Duane - I am envious! I have been chasing Red-tails all around where I live but there is always something wrong with angles, light, cold, wind or something else. So I remain empty handed. I really like the lighting in yours - that makes it for me. The raised foot is a bonus. I would rather not have the busy background but IMO it's just subdued enough that it's not a big distractant. BTW, it's an unusual-looking Red-tail from my experience. Could it be a Red-shoulder?

[James Salywoda]

Excellent Shot nice pose and details Duane.

[Duane Noblick]

Thank you for the critiques. I managed 6 frames of this Hawk on this perch and this is the last one with a good head angle because with it's foot up it was in the process of turning and flying away from me. I had no time to change angles unfortunately but did capture images of it on 11 different perches thoughout the morning as it hunted.

I also want to thank the ones that questioned the ID of this Hawk and it made me ask that question to a local wildlife biologist. He confirmed that this is indeed a young Red-shouldered Hawk...not a Red-tailed Hawk as I assumed. This was my second encounter with this Hawk (First encounter was it perched on a planter) and I wish all my first encounter with new species turned out like this one. :)