{"id":51378,"date":"2018-03-25T06:13:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T12:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=51378"},"modified":"2026-04-11T13:16:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:16:24","slug":"cruddy-light-cloudy-skies-plus-a-red-tailed-hawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/03\/25\/cruddy-light-cloudy-skies-plus-a-red-tailed-hawk\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruddy Light, Cloudy Skies Plus a Red-tailed Hawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Red-tailedRed-tailed Hawk, midges and low light – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/500, ISO 2500, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday morning three different radar\/satellite showed very few clouds north of Salt Lake City and since I had been cooped up for so long it seemed like heading north was a good thing to do to get out, photograph birds, see a little sunshine and relax in the field.<\/p>\n

Wrong. The radar\/satellite images were wrong, wrong, wrong. There were clouds, lots and lots of clouds.<\/p>\n

I always try to be optimistic, positive and to do the best I can do with the light I have but I will tell you something… the light was so bad that even my eyes were struggling yesterday to see and identify birds, they just looked like dark, bird-shaped blobs.<\/p>\n

I would have been totally skunked yesterday if I hadn’t spotted the top of this Red-tailed Hawk’s head and some wing movement where it was buried in a sagebrush next to a hillside.<\/p>\n

I quickly bumped my ISO up to 2500 just to get some shutter speed. When it flew to a second bush I could see more of its body than I could on the first bush but the light was so bad.<\/p>\n

I’m not very happy with this photo but I wanted to share it anyway because when I got home and viewed it on my monitor I could see a cloud of midges around the bird.<\/p>\n

Those teeny little salt & pepper looking spots above and around the hawk are the midges.<\/p>\n

\"Red-tailedRed-tailed Hawk landing on sage in low light – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/320, ISO 2500, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Red-tailed Hawk took off from the second bush and flew south I was able to track it and photograph it as it landed on a third bush. There is quite a lot of motion blur shown here on the tail and the wing tips but even at ISO 2500 my shutter speed was slow.<\/p>\n

It was definitely frustrating but at least I was out photographing a<\/em> bird. Right?<\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure the Red-tailed Hawk<\/span><\/a> was looking for nesting materials but I wouldn’t bet my totally imaginary farm on it. After the hawk took off from this sagebrush it flew up high and circled around the top of a cliff for a bit before it disappeared from my sight.<\/p>\n

\"CloudyCloudy skies over Box Elder County and the Great Salt Lake – Nikon D810, f10, 1\/2000, ISO 500, Nikkor 18-200mm VR at 18mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what the skies looked like most of the time I was looking for birds yesterday morning. This is not what the radar\/satellite showed. At all.<\/p>\n

On the up side I did hear a Long-billed Curlew yesterday but I didn’t see it in the absolutely cruddy light, I heard a Sora calling, saw and heard my first of the year Say’s Phoebe and to my delight I also saw my first of the year Turkey Vultures.<\/p>\n

I saw Tundra Swans flying overhead, one Golden Eagle, one immature Bald Eagle, several Northern Harriers and one Rough-legged Hawk. There were little birds too but in the gloom they were just little dark blobs that I couldn’t ID.<\/p>\n

I am glad I went if for nothing else to get out of the house and to see the birds but I sure wish the light had been better.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Red-tailed Hawk photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would have been totally skunked yesterday if I hadn’t spotted the top of this Red-tailed Hawk’s head and some wing movement where it was buried in a sagebrush next to a hillside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,1148,449,26],"tags":[2663,3489,4170,6427,4033,4169,2386,156,540,153,4209,4057],"class_list":["post-51378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-red-tailed-hawks","category-utah","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-buteo","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-cloudy-skies","tag-hawk","tag-hawks","tag-hawks-of-utah","tag-low-light-2","tag-midges","tag-raptors","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-sagebrush"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t