As I left the gym this morning, I was treated to a fascinating display by a of pair of red-tailed hawks. One flew over the parking lot just as I was driving away and when I turned onto Pleasant Grove Blvd., I saw four hawks soaring over the baseball fields so I pulled into the next parking lot by the fire station to watch. One pair quickly disappeared but the other circled, soared, and screamed overhead. I assume I was witnessing mating behavior. I have read that a precursor to mating includes locking talons and while I didn’t witness locked talons, they were flying around with their talons outstretched as if they were going to pounce on prey but they were high up and they never approached the ground. They finally disappeared from view after about a half hour.
I set the shutter speed to 1/320 but I should have set it higher or used Shutter Prioritiy because my photos aren’t crisply focused. The first shot is SOOC and the second and third shots are cropped. I also made a RAW fine-tuning adjustment to sharpen them a bit.
Really cool shots! The first thing I noticed was their feet- how interesting! Looks detailed and focused to me- and great use of negative space! 🙂