Red Tailed Hawk sets up home in Midlothian

[Maestro]

Of course this isn't unusual but since I have seen this hawk in the same places consistently on my bike rides through town, I decided to track it down with my camera lens. On two different days I caught it action. The pic where it is feeding was quite unplanned. I caught a glimpse of it as I was leaving my local grocery store. It was behind the grocery store on an old post that once served as a clothes line.

Soaring over Midlothian...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Hawk_in_flight1_sharper.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Hawk_gaining_altitude_shrp_brgt.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Hawk_in_flight5_shrp.jpg

Enjoying a snack...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Red_Tail_feeding17_sharper.jpg

More can be seen of these and other birds here: http://Maestros.smugmug.com/gallery/2283675/1/123392080

[betsy]

Woo hoo! Another photographer! I like the way you caught the bird using the wind in the first two shots, Maestro. I'm going through your gallery and the unusual angle of shot 76 just captured my attention -- I don't believe I've ever seen a hawk from that angle -- at least, not long enough to imprint the shape on my brain. Here it is in case its relative number changes when you add more photos to your gallery:

http://maestros.smugmug.com/photos/120815567-M.jpg

A propos of your shot of this escaped domestic crested duck (or descendent of an escapee) ( http://maestros.smugmug.com/gallery/2283675/9/119451006 ), you might be interested in the page about crested ducks on this website http://www.domestic-waterfowl.co.uk/index.htm . A great many of these exotic domestic types of ducks were bred from Mallards, I've been told. That website should help you identify strange ducks, or at least some of their ancestry, that don't appear in your field guides in the wild duck section.

Enjoyed my trip thru your gallery -- hope to see more posts from you here.

[Maestro]

Woo hoo! Another photographer! I like the way you caught the bird using the wind in the first two shots, Maestro. I'm going through your gallery and the unusual angle of shot 76 just captured my attention -- I don't believe I've ever seen a hawk from that angle -- at least, not long enough to imprint the shape on my brain. Here it is in case its relative number changes when you add more photos to your gallery:

http://maestros.smugmug.com/photos/120815567-M.jpg

A propos of your shot of this escaped domestic crested duck (or descendent of an escapee) ( http://maestros.smugmug.com/gallery/2283675/9/119451006 ), you might be interested in the page about crested ducks on this website http://www.domestic-waterfowl.co.uk/index.htm . A great many of these exotic domestic types of ducks were bred from Mallards, I've been told. That website should help you identify strange ducks, or at least some of their ancestry, that don't appear in your field guides in the wild duck section.

Enjoyed my trip thru your gallery -- hope to see more posts from you here.

Hey Betsy,

Thank you for the kind words. I am trying to really improve as a photographer. I never thought that taking a good picture took so much effort. And coincidentally enough, photography is what spurred my interest in birding. Now I am almost exclusively photographing wildlife; especially birds. Thanks for the info on the ducks and other waterfowl. It is interesting. I will read more on that.

As far as the angle on that shot, I am not really sure how that happened except that the hawk was quite near me basically circling around and the shot is zoomed and cropped quite a bit.

As soon as I get a free moment and the weather is good, I am planning a birding trip to the Dallas Nature Reserve by which I grew up in the 70s and 80s. I also plan on going out to Cedar Hill State Park for some birding as well. I'll post pics as I get them, but I will leave you with this Eastern Bluebird and this yellow rumped warbler. These were taken over the weekend in my backyard. :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Easternbluebirdonfencepost2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Yellow_tinged_songbird2.jpg

[One Strange Bird]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Easternbluebirdonfencepost2.jpg

Hey, hot stuff! ;)

[betsy]

Very nice, Maestro! btw, I'm sad to see you deleted that hawk shot of yours that I posted above. All I see is a red X in a box now, and when I got the properties and looked here it said it had been removed: http://maestros.smugmug.com/photos/120815567-M.jpg

[Maestro]

Very nice, Maestro! btw, I'm sad to see you deleted that hawk shot of yours that I posted above. All I see is a red X in a box now, and when I got the properties and looked here it said it had been removed: http://maestros.smugmug.com/photos/120815567-M.jpg


I bet it is still there. I took all those hawk photos down last week (some yesterday) because I had done some post processing on the originals to make them a bit sharper and I also adjusted the color balance to make the colors more like the colors I saw when I snapped the photo. If you look again at my gallery, I bet you can find the photo. If not, let me know. That means that I forgot to repost that one.

[betsy]

Sorry -- don't have time to hunt through hundreds of photos to find it again. If you can find it, tho, and give me the new URL, I'll edit it into my earlier post.

[Maestro]

Sorry -- don't have time to hunt through hundreds of photos to find it again. If you can find it, tho, and give me the new URL, I'll edit it into my earlier post.

You shouldn't have to hunt through hundreds of photos if you are talking about the hawk photo. The gallery only has a few of the hawk in flight. Here are some though. Was it any of these with the strange angle?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Hawk_turning_view_back_shrp.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Hawk_overhead_cropped_shrp.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Flapping_wings.jpg



(http://Maestros.smugmug.com/photos/123390208-Th.jpg)

[betsy]

Those are lovely, Maestro, but the one I originally posted was the one you captured from the back as the hawk was approaching a tree. It had its wings down and body relatively level to the camera. The first time I looked through your gallery I found a way to skip from one page of thumbnails to the next but I couldn't figure out how to do that again last time -- I was having to go through one photo at a time. You may have only a few hawk photos in there, but they're not in a separate gallery.

[Maestro]

Those are lovely, Maestro, but the one I originally posted was the one you captured from the back as the hawk was approaching a tree. It had its wings down and body relatively level to the camera. The first time I looked through your gallery I found a way to skip from one page of thumbnails to the next but I couldn't figure out how to do that again last time -- I was having to go through one photo at a time. You may have only a few hawk photos in there, but they're not in a separate gallery.

Okay. I'll look for it. :)