A red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) soars above me in Sun Valley yesterday. © BCP 2011
As promised, here is a shot of the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) that kept me company Thursday as I was tromping about in Sun Valley, looking for some flowers in bloom. I saw this hawk and what I am guessing was his/her mate, on and off during the afternoon. The two were circling around and around the field, clearly hunting. I didn’t give too much thought to getting a photo of them as they were very high up and quite far away.
It was a deeply overcast afternoon and most of the time I noticed the hawks they were backlit against the sky. They appeared mostly as dark shapes (clearly buteos) without colour or much definition, so I wasn’t totally sure what species they were. At one point, though, the sun forced its way through the clouds and I got a glimpse of one of the hawk’s brick-red tail. Case closed!
Later, I was down on the damp ground, concentrating on getting a good shot of a beautiful seed pod that captured my imagination (more on that tomorrow), when I suddenly noticed that one of the hawks was circling much lower down and much closer to me. I managed to grab my other camera, the one with super-long lens, and punch off a couple of shots as the hawk passed overhead.
What I ended up with was a sort of passable shot of the hawk in flight, with a completely white, wiped-out sky.
It’s always worth a try.
© BCP 2011
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