All this spring at work, I've been seeing a couple of red-tailed hawks out my office window. A couple of times I've also seen one on a light post on my way home. Up until today, I either didn't have my camera with me, or had the camera and just plain failed. Today I finally had some success!
Failures
Once I was driving through campus and flushed one from a tree and it flew off in the opposite direction. I went back that direction but couldn't find it. And of course, as I was driving home I saw it on a light post too late to get back on campus. It would have taken me 5-10 minutes to get back to the spot and I figured by then it would have flown off. Another time, I saw a turkey vulture soaring over the parking lot so I figured I'd take a few throwaway frames to play with some camera settings. After I was finished I saw a large bird soaring toward me and assumed it was the turkey vulture. Wrong. Turned out to be a hawk, but by the time I realized it it was much too late. And it flew right over my head.Success
Today was a win though. I exited work through a path that lets me see the light posts from a vantage point on campus. I saw the hawk, so I turned around as soon as I could. It had moved, so I was disappointed eventually. But then I saw it had moved to an even better spot. It was even closer! I stopped in the middle of the road (on campus) and grabbed some shots. I so wish the Tamron 150-600 I have on order was here, it would have been an excellent opportunity to give it a test. I got the opening shot, and then a blue jay showed up to harass the hawk. Awesome.
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