About My Hawk Photos

NOTE: I thought I'd cover some of my favorite hawk photos and how I got the shots. This first one is not the earliest encounter, but it was the first in a series I've gotten in the same section of woods in a Columbus MetroPark.

I ran across this hawk while I was walking a trail in a nearby MetroPark. I saw movement across the trail ahead of me and immediately realized it was a hawk. I could tell it was carrying something. The most amazing thing was that it landed on a branch nearby, hardly taking any notice of me at all! I had to move a bit to get a decent view of him and while I was carefully moving over, he ate his lunch, probably a garter snake.

Since he was sitting still and so close by, I decided to try to get my flash out, and grab a few shots with some decent lighting. Before I could really get set up though, he had taken off to another location that was still visible to me. While I kept an eye on him, I finished setting up my lighting gear. I had my Vivitar 285HV on a light stand, triggered by my "eBay" slaves. The hawk's new location was atop a thin, dead tree at the bottom of a ravine. I made a fairly easy decent halfway down the hillside to a location that was somewhat shielded by trees. I set the light stand against a tree and aimed it at the hawk.

The day was overcast enough that the flash did make a difference. I fired a few shots from this location and then decided to venture further down the ravine. The Red-Tailed Hawk kept an eye on me, but didn't seem to mind my presence too much. I probably had a good fifteen minutes of shooting, moving further down, shooting some more. Finally I decided that if I was going to get a better shot, I was going to have to go back up the hill to get my light stand and move it closer, back down the hill. I did just that and even managed to get a few more shots before the hawk took off for a remote section of the woods.

You can see more of my hawk photos at PatterPhotography.com