Perched Red-tailed Hawk in a snow stormPerched Red-tailed Hawk in a snow storm – Nikon D810, f6.3, 1/6400, ISO 2500, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited.

Our first major winter storm of the year started before sunrise Christmas morning but that didn’t stop me from going out into the field to photograph birds. The light was low plus there was blowing snow so the conditions weren’t the best. At times it was difficult to focus because the camera would grab onto the snow and not my subjects while at other times my D810 would lock on tight to the birds.

Yesterday I posted this Red-tailed Hawk in flight after it had lifted off from its perch so today I wanted to post one of the images I took as the hawk perched in the falling snow. This beautiful rufous Red-tailed Hawk has been hanging around Farmington Bay for a couple of months now much to the delight of many photographers and myself. Click here to see a photo of her taken in October as she lifted off from a tree on the WMA. In that post I stated that I hoped to get images of her in the snow and thankfully I did yesterday.

This coming week the conditions will be even harsher in the Salt Lake Valley with night time lows dropping into the single digits. Life isn’t easy for our birds in the winter.

But as always, life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Red-tailed Hawk photos plus facts and information about this species.