There are issues with this image which I will cover shortly but I really liked the pose of this Red-tailed Hawk, the spread of the wings, the flared tail and the great eye contact I was able to capture as the Red-tail looked down towards me as it flew in a bright blue Montana sky.
I photographed this mated pair of Red-tailed Hawks last week in western Montana as they soaked up the warming rays of the morning sun.
Ferruginous Hawks fascinate me, they are large, handsome and regal raptors. This one just appears to me to be surveying its kingdom from the top of a ranch gate in the Centennial Valley.
Sometimes I take the shot despite knowing that I am not shooting in optimal conditions, most of the time the results are awful but once in awhile I actually enjoy the final image.
Swainson's Hawks are one of the three Buteos that I see with regularity on my visits to the Centennial Valley of Montana, Red-tailed and Ferruginous Hawks are the other two.
This is a rather short tale about a Red-tailed Hawk although the tail of the Red-tailed Hawk is no shorter than any other Red-tailed Hawk.
The other day I came across that post and felt very embarrassed because on that post I realized I had incorrectly ID'd this bird as a Red-tailed Hawk.
This juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk was perched on a metal fence post so I opted to go for a portrait to remove the "hand of man".
The weird Canada Geese behavior on the top of the cliff led me to finding a Red-tailed Hawks nest though and I am tickled about that.
One of my favorite locations to photograph birds in northern Utah is Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. I've selected some of the birds there that delight and entertain me while I observe and photograph them.
Five days ago I posted a Bald Eagle image where the eagle was small in the frame and explained that I felt that the setting was as important as the subject, I also feel that way about this image of a Red-shouldered Hawk juvenile perched in a tree.
I photographed this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flying by last month at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area in Davis County.
Typically I see far more Northern Harriers in the winter here in Utah than I do during the breeding season which might be partly due to the harriers preferring to nest within marshy wetland areas which are in abundance around the Great Salt Lake.
I recall that when I first started photographing the juvenile Red-tailed Hawks in this area back in August that they missed their prey more times than they would capture it and now they seem to have gone the other way, they are catching the prey more than they are missing it.
This adult Swainson's had two juveniles nearby that were perched on the conifer tree that their natal nest was in and the sun was getting close to setting. Sometimes I wish I could "speak" raptor so I could know what they are saying.
This image of a Northern Harrier and a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk in an aerial dogfight over Antelope Island State Park was taken the day before the recent snow storm started that we had here in the Salt Lake Valley over the weekend.
This juvenile Red-tailed Hawk was concentrating on some thing on the ground when I photographed it.
Last winter was awesome for seeing Rough-legged Hawks and I am hoping they had another great breeding season and that they will show up here in large numbers to over winter.
Kind a of a crazy title but it is a mantra that I live by when it comes to my bird and nature photography. It simply means that unless I go out shooting I won't know what I am missing.
Not only did I see numerous Red-tailed Hawk juveniles on my recent trip to Montana, I also saw quite a few Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) juveniles too.
While I was away in Montana for eight days starting last week I had a fantastic time photographing this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.
Ferruginous Hawks are the largest hawks found in North America. They inhabit low elevation, open areas in the western United States and some locations in southwestern Canada and winter in southwestern US and Mexico.
On my mid-July journey to southwestern Montana it seemed like there were juvenile hawks every where I looked, the east and west side of the Centennial Valley and the south and north sides too.
Rough-legged Hawks breed in the Arctic so we don't see them around here in northern Utah during the summer.
Just an image I took yesterday of this male Northern Harrier in flight. As simple as the image is I like the great eye contact it has.
I am one of those people who love deserts and the West Desert of Utah is once again beckoning to me. The weather here in Utah is very changeable right now, it can feel like spring one day and the next it still feels like winter but it won't be long before the weather levels out and the west desert will begin to green up.
There aren't many people in the west desert of Utah thus the raptors and other birds that live there are not habituated to people so they are very skittish even when using a mobile blind.
This Northern Harrier displayed interesting behavior, it didn't appear to be hunting but it would dive into the vegetation where it would make a sound that reminded me of parrots chattering.
It seems that people either love high key images or they hate them. Personally; I believe that when a high key image is done well that they can be very appealing and have a place for them in my portfolio.
Last week though I had the opportunity to photograph a very cooperative Rough-legged Hawk preening.