First Winter Red-tailed Hawk Lift Off Photos

Last month I spent twenty-eight lovely minutes photographing this first winter Red-tailed Hawk in the marsh at Farmington Bay WMA. When I first spotted and pointed out the immature Red-tailed Hawk I remembered having photographed another young hawk on the same exact metal post about two years prior to this sighting.

First winter Red-tailed Hawk perched on a metal post – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

This young Red-tailed Hawk perched on the metal post and spent most of its time looking around for prey. It was also dive-bombed by a Northern Harrier and I shared those photos last month.

I wanted to share a series of consecutive images as this first winter Red-tailed Hawk lifted off. In this first photo the young bird of prey looked calm.

First winter Red-tailed Hawk preparing to lift off – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

Then the young raptor lifted one of its wings and turned its body ever so slightly. The hawk seemed to use its other wing to maintain its balance on the small metal pole.

First winter Red-tailed Hawk a split second before lift off – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

In the next frame the first winter Red-tailed Hawk started to push both of its wings down to gain some lift for its take off. I noticed that it also seemed to have it eyes on something in the distance.

First winter Red-tailed Hawk lifting off from a metal pole – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

Then the immature Red-tailed Hawk lifted off and started to fly over the winter marsh. In this photo the metal pole that it had lifted off from is still visible.

First winter Red-tailed Hawk turning in flight – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/3200, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

The final photo in the series of five images shows the first winter Red-tailed Hawk turning away from me in flight but I still had a view of the young hawk’s eye so I wanted to include it to finish off this post.

If I had taken my eyes away from this hawk for even a second to check out other traffic on the road I would have missed being able to photograph this series.

Life is good.

Mia

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