Tag: buteo lagopus

Just A Shot That I Like… #26 – Rough-legged Hawk In Flight With Prey

I’ve been lucky in the past to get some nice shots of Short-eared Owls in flight carrying prey but my luck with hawks in the same situation has been abysmal.  Whenever the opportunity does present itself it’s usually when the hawk has taken off away from me so all I get is another butt shot with the head and eye hidden.    1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These birds typically want to take off into the wind and on this day the wind direction was just right so that the hawk didn’t fly away from me as it lifted off.  So I got good light, an acceptable wing position and even a nice look at the vole with its eye visible. Ron

Continue reading

Rough-legged Hawk At Take-Off

It’s been a good winter in northern Utah for Rough-legged Hawks.  I’ve seen many more this year than I have in years past and they were particularly abundant on Antelope Island and on the causeway.  On several occasions out there we counted 20 birds or more.  Their numbers have now thinned out considerably but there’s still a few of them around.     1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  I found this one a few weeks ago perched in the grasses in front of a darker colored field of dried sunflowers.  The hawk was too obscured by the grasses for quality photos so as usual I set up for take-off.      1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc As the hawk gained elevation the darker sunflowers dominated the background but you can still see the out of focus grasses at the bottom of the frame.  I really like the backgrounds/settings the island often provides, though all that texture and contrast behind the subject can sure make it a challenge to get focus lock on the bird – particularly in flight. I’ll miss these handsome buteos this summer but hope they have a successful breeding season on the arctic tundra and return in good numbers again next winter. Ron

Continue reading

Just A Shot That I Like… #15 – Rough-legged Hawk Lift Off

Ugly perches have been the bain of my photographic existence lately.  When a bird lets me get unusually close it always seems to be on a metal post, sign, hunk of concrete , telephone pole or even a sailboat mast.  For that reason I’ve been attempting a lot of take-off shots recently.    1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4 Case in point: a few weeks ago this hawk let me get ridiculously close but it was perched on a particularly unattractive metal sign.  The light angle was good so I removed my teleconverter and waited to see if it would take-off, fully expecting it to launch away from me as they usually do.  What a pleasant surprise when it took off parallel to me and gave me good eye contact at the same time.  I particularly like the good detail, the blood on the feet from its last meal and the nice look at those namesake “rough legs”.  Ron

Continue reading

Kiting Rough-legged Hawk

Kiting is the ability of some birds to maintain a stable position in the air by using air currents rather than by the flapping of wings or hovering.   Last week I had a wonderful opportunity with this young Rough-legged Hawk while it was kiting in the stiff wind rising up from the Antelope Island causeway.  The light was good and the bird was cooperative and let me get close – what more could a bird photographer wish for?      1/1000, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc It was amazing to see how still in the air this bird could be – often maintaining the same relative position to the ground without significant wing movement for long periods.  I swear that if I had been using a tripod I could have focused on the bird, walked away for 10 seconds or so and then returned and snapped the shutter with the hawk still in the frame and without having had to look through the viewfinder or refocus.   A bit of a stretch perhaps, but not by a lot.       1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Much of the time the hawk was hunting – looking down into the grasses for voles.  That head position doesn’t provide the eye contact that is photographically desirable but I wanted to include a shot that illustrated hunting posture.         1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The hawk caught several voles while I was photographing it.  In this instance the bird immediately took to the air with the very young vole…      …

Continue reading

Just A Shot That I Like… #9 – Rough-legged Hawk Taking Off

I was looking down on this Rough-legged Hawk from an elevated road when it decided to take off.      1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This shot illustrates both the blessing and the curse of using an attached teleconverter.  If I hadn’t been using the tc for this image I’d have had two choices: 1),  crop so that the hawk was much smaller in the frame which would have reduced the impact of the image or 2), crop so the bird was still this large in the frame which would have significantly reduced image quality and increased noise.  So I’m glad I had the tc on for this shot. However, after take-off this roughie unexpectedly flew past me very close and I clipped or cut off many body parts in most of those images.   If I hadn’t been using the tc I’d likely have been able to get some pretty spectacular flight shots with this nice background and good light.  You just never know… Ron     

Continue reading

Sometimes the Prey Bites Back

I hope you’ll bear with me but this post will be more about behavior than image quality as I just didn’t have a good light angle for this little drama.  As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, one of my primary goals is to document interesting behaviors and at times that will take priority over the quality of the images.  When Rough-legged Hawks dive on prey it can be fairly dramatic.  Typically they hover high up over the potential prey for a few moments, then dive fast and at a fairly steep angle.  Occasionally they seem to hit the ground so hard that it rattles my teeth, almost making me expect them to bounce on impact.     1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I watched this hawk hover, then dive.  I think you can see from the wing position that this bird was still traveling at a good clip and at a fairly steep angle when it was only a couple of feet from the ground.   The prey was on a hill above me and buried in this vegetation so I didn’t see the impact.       1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Often these attempts at prey are unsuccessful but this time the hawk caught a vole (along with a talon-full of debris).   The bird came out of the grasses directly toward me but then turned to its left to give me a side view.     1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  This little vole had a bucket-full of attitude and didn’t want to go down…

Continue reading

A Very Cooperative Rough-legged Hawk

In a previous post I mentioned that I had been encouraged by the number of Rough-legged Hawks (roughies) I’ve been seeing this fall.  Well I’m delighted to report that the situation continues to improve.  On virtually every photo expedition over the last few weeks I’ve seen several of them and on two recent trips we’ve made about a dozen sightings of different individuals each time.  However getting good photos of them is a different story altogether.   After a season in the high arctic they’re very unapproachable and even when I have been able to get reasonably close they’re usually perched on an unattractive sign or post and take off away from me.  All that changed a few days ago though when we found one very cooperative bird.  This species has the most different male and female plumages (sexual dimorphism) of all our buteos and I’m quite sure this is a light phase female.     1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc We first spotted this bird on a low wooden post that resembled a piling and I was pleasantly surprised that it let us approach (in my vehicle) with no signs of nervousness.   It was early on a cold, frosty morning and while looking through the viewfinder I assumed that the material on top of the post was spider silk that had collected dew and then frozen.  But after looking at the photos at home I wasn’t so sure so the next day I walked over to the post to check it out.   Duh – should have known.  It was  frosted bison fur.  This was Antelope Island…

Continue reading

Rough-legged Hawks Return To Utah

For the last couple of years I’ve had very little luck locating Rough-legged Hawks (roughies) here in northern Utah, which frustrates me because I think they’re among the most handsome and photogenic of all the raptors and I love to photograph them.  These birds breed in the high arctic so they aren’t here at all during the summer.  Most of them winter in the “lower 48” but they are highly nomadic and their numbers in a particular area fluctuate according to the availability of their rodent prey.  This year I’m greatly encouraged because in the last ten days or so I’ve seen many of these striking hawks.     1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This one was atop a perch that is photographically challenging – a Tintic Quartzite boulder on the north end of Antelope Island.   These rocks often blow out the whites on the sun side, especially if the bird on them is dark.  I’ve deleted many a shot of a raven on one of these boulders.       1/3200, f/5.6, ISO 800, f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I had a wonderful (though sometimes frustrating) time with the roughies on the island.  The highlight of the morning came when I was trying to sneak up on a kestrel perched in a rabbit brush.  As I did so I noticed a gull flying right toward the kestrel but I quickly ignored it and concentrated on the kestrel.  Then, at the last second, something in my mind said “hey, that was no gull” just as the bird swooped low…

Continue reading