Red Tailed Brunch

Maestro

I caught this Red Tailed Hawk getting a bit of brunch. It had come down off of a utility pole, went behind a barbed wire fence covered with brush then reappeared. I got off three shots before it was too far away. It had a snake.



In this pic, if you look very closely at the hip of the bird just above its talon, you can see the snake bite the hawk.



The snake apparently kept biting the hawk because after this frame the hawk landed in the middle of a large field, then immediately took off again, but this time it had a field mouse and let the snake go. It flew on to another utility pole to eat. I didn't disturb it any more.



I also redid this one from last week. I didn't like the way it turned out in the face area. Here it is reprocessed and a bit sharper.



And this last one is new. It is from the same series as the above shot, but it has a vertical orientation.


Anyhow, enjoy.

JenGrace

Ouch! Talons vs. fangs... Cool series.

kdog

Great action series, Maestro! Any chance we can see a closer crop of the snake biting the hawk? Or is that pretty much as close as it gets?

Cheers,
-joel

dbaker1221

pretty cool Stephen

Maestro

JenW wrote:

Ouch! Talons vs. fangs... Cool series.

Thanks Jen:D

Maestro

dbaker1221 wrote:

pretty cool Stephen

Thanks Dave. It was a pretty boring day until this happened.

Maestro

kdog wrote:

Great action series, Maestro! Any chance we can see a closer crop of the snake biting the hawk? Or is that pretty much as close as it gets?

Cheers,
-joel

I'll go back to the RAW but I think this is pretty much all she wrote. The hawk was pretty far away but I will see. Thanks for the comment.:D

raptorcaptor

Cool set Stephen! It would be cool to see a close-up. (We won't even grade you on the graininess! )

Maestro

raptorcaptor wrote:

Cool set Stephen! It would be cool to see a close-up. (We won't even grade you on the graininess! )

Well alrighty then, since you are not grading, here it is at at a 98% crop. I think you can see the head of the snake biting the RTH's leg here.

raptorcaptor

Held up pretty well! That snake was very lucky!

Maestro

raptorcaptor wrote:

Held up pretty well! That snake was very lucky!

Thanks Glenn. I wish the face was a bit more in focus, but it did hold up pretty well with such a large crop.

Giphsub

nice! Wonder how he fared after the snake bite?

Maestro

Giphsub wrote:

nice! Wonder how he fared after the snake bite?

Not sure. It depends on if those talons dug into the body.

kdog

raptorcaptor wrote:

Held up pretty well! That snake was very lucky!

And the hawk was lucky that this wasn't a rattler. :eek1

Cheers,
-joel

Harryb

Excellent series and the crop works pretty well.