Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]LUGs, Ordinarily, the sighting of a red-tailed hawk is not very exciting. It is one of the most common hawks in the country and has adapted itself to a variety of habitats, even an urban environment. Last year I saw one building a nest on a ledge of a city hospital building. However, when such a bird remains perched about 50 feet away, unbothered by human presence, it's a different story. In the course of last Sunday's bird walk, I had the opportunity to observe and photograph a juvenile red-tailed for about 20 minutes. It was perched in a small tree in a clearing and stayed in place as I set up the tripod and related paraphernalia. Smaller birds - orioles, jays, mockingbirds - began mobbing it as they generally do when a predator appears. Then it flew to the ground behind a small bush where it caught a small meal. The upper portion of the bird remained visibile through the grass as it killed its prey and ate. I've posted three photos of the bird - two while perched, one on the ground with prey. The last was shot through intervening brush. They are at: http://pages.cthome.net/royzartarian/red-tail.html All were taken on Provia 100 with a tripod-mounted R8, 280/2.8 and stacked 1.4 and 2x extenders. For the shots against the sky, I switched to manual operation in the spot metering mode, taking the measurement on the bird's body. Roy - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html