I spent 26 minutes yesterday photographing juvenile Red-tailed Hawk siblings and had a blast watching them preen, lift off, flying, scratching, resting and landing. There was one adult nearby keeping an eye on them but I spent most of my time focusing on the young hawks because they were closer and far more active. I haven’t seen many hatch year Red-tailed Hawks this year so when I found these two yesterday I was more than happy to take photos of them as they went about their morning.
Please click on the first image to begin a slide show which you can view automatically or you can use your mouse to scroll through the photos.
I picked some of these juvenile Red-tailed Hawk photos because the poses were funny, some because of the action they show and some just because I enjoyed viewing them. I liked the lichen-covered cliffs the young raptors were on, the puffy clouds that were in some photos plus how a few of them included blooming sage. Photographing young Red-tailed hawks is always a joy and these two raptors didn’t disappoint.
I photographed the young hawks using my Nikon D500 and Nikkor 500mm VR lens, most were with the 1.4x TC attached, I used ISO settings from 250 to 640 and my aperture settings varied between f6.3 to f10.
Life is good.
Mia
Click here to see more of my Red-tailed Hawk photos plus facts and information about this species.
What an incredible study! I just can’t imagine a better, more intriguing, series of shots. Beautiful in every way. Thanks Mia.
I LOVE the slide show. Many, many thanks. I will come back to marvel at these beauties again.
Great series !! The lichen-covered rocks are the final color-coordinated touch!
Wow, what a wonderful plethora of photos. I was smiling as I scrolled though my smile got bigger with each new photo. My favorite is the puffed chest, fanned tail pose making it look like a grouse.
Wonderful series, Mia!
Really fantastic series!
Such richness! Thank you for a fantastic start to my day. 🙂 As Dick would say, VBG! 😀
Many thanks!
Awesome
What a fantastic series of photos. Wonderful!
Love all of them!
Question: I have always felt that animals recognize specifics in the landscape, especially those things that will insure their survival. Just like in any animal population there are those less fortunate or make dumb moves and pay the price. However, my question is do you believe that these hawks or for that matter some of the birds you photograph recognize the vehicle the truck as not a threat?
Thanks Dick. In answer to your question in my experiences with young raptors I find them to be far less skittish than adults are and that may well be because of their inexperience with humans and the world in general. Adult raptors seem a bit more skittish around vehicles than these youngster do, in fact several vehicles went by while I was photographing these young Red-tailed Hawks and I only saw one of them react once and that was probably due to the noise of a heavy vehicle going over a cattle grate, the young hawk didn’t fly but it did flutter its wings. I do think that birds, hawks or otherwise become acclimated to having vehicles near them and don’t always perceive them as threats although noisy vehicles do seem to set them on alert. For instance my Jeep is relatively quiet on the road, nothing rattles, beeps or bangs around and I can usually stop to photograph birds without causing them to flush. I think older raptors are more cautious because of their life experience and unfortunately there are people who are aggressive towards them.