Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: hawk

Looked out the kitchen window yesterday and found this stunning hawk sitting comfortably on top of one of our bird feeders. The focus is a little soft, but at least I got the image before it flew away, low across our meadow.

Photographed near our bird feeders

This image was taken by my husband, Steve!

My alternate is from lunchtime today! Steve was making sandwiches when he saw this beauty land on one of our bird feeders. It stayed long enough for me to grab my camera and take some pictures! I wished I had time to use the 300mm lens and tripod but at least I got this one! :)

This afternoon I came downstairs with Pumpkin (my parrot) and I saw a flash of something out the kitchen window. A tiny Sharp-Shinned Hawk had just landed on one of our plant hooks, hoping for a finch or junco to fly up to one of our bird feeders for a snack. My camera was right there so I grabbed it and started taking pictures while Pumpkin proceeded to crawl from my hand up to my shoulder and down the other arm to my camera...silly bird! After about a minute the hawk flew off and it was then I realized to my horror that I'd left the ISO at 1000 from this morning!! I was taking pictures of the sunrise and needed the higher ISO because I didn't have time to set up a tri-pod...and I didn't set it back. DRAT AND BLOODY H...well you get the drift! When I looked up, the hawk was back again! However, this time it was on a pole about 20 feet further away. I lowered my ISO and got a bunch of pictures, but when I compared all the shots on my computer, the best pair were with the high ISO...go figure! Anyway, I had to deal with a lot of noise and you'll see it in the wings, but I was able to alleviate most of it. This picture is another example of having a separate layer for the bird and another for the background. The background is smooth and noise-free and has only a bit of tint in it with soft vignetting. The bird has only as much noise reduction as I could get away with before I started losing too much detail. I then applied a light detail filter. Charles Robert Darwin, (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Wikipedia: Charles Darwin Explored on Flickr on February 27, 2013. Highest position: #85.

Talk about a funny position!! I managed to get this picture just as the Sharp-Shin spotted something and took off like a bullet! All it needs is a cape!

While we were walking around one edge of the Upper Table Rock, I saw a hawk flying by, and I managed to get this picture! Not sure what kind it is though!

Yesterday was a lucky day for flying birds! I got a wonderful image of the turkey vulture I shared yesterday, and I also got several pictures of a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks that were circling on the thermals along the ridge line. I was delighted when they flew close enough to get some reasonable pictures! If you would like to know more about Red-Tailed Hawks, Wiki has a super page here: Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)