Posts in Category: hawk
Immature Bateleur
Immature Bateleur: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — We must have seen a dozen immature Bateleurs. The adult Bateleur is a very distinctive African Hawk-Eagle, mostly black with bright orange-red bill and cere, and deep rust between the wings on the back. Both male and female have grey wing coverts on the shoulder and the female as a grey panel across the flight feathers. Along with the short tailed, big headed look, it is a very striking and unmistakable bird. The immatures share the shape, but are plain brown with a pale bluish bill and cere. Not nearly as exciting :). Still we were always happy to see them…especially since each sighting fueled our hope of seeing an adult in the area…but we never did. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Black Kite
Black Kite: Entebbe Botanical Gardens: Entebbe, Uganda, August 2022 — by far the most common raptor we saw in Uganda was the Black Kite…and we saw it every day, where ever we traveled in our loop through the parks of the south-west corner of the country…mostly in the air, but occasionally, as here at the Entebbe Botanical Gardens, perched. Sony Rx10iv at 591 and 600mm equivalents. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th and 1/640th. Plus 1.3EV exposure compensation.
Black Hawk Eagle
Black Hawk Eagle: Canopy Tower, Panama, July 2022 — As we were driving down from the Tower on my first full birding day at Canopy Tower in Panama, I glimpsed a raptor sitting in a dead snag across the sharp little valley of the stream that that road follows down, silhouetted against the overcast sky. My immediate reaction was Crested Hawk Eagle as, at the moment I saw it, it had its crest raised. (The Crested Hawk Eagle is actually an African Bird…though the name was commonly used for what is now called the Ornate Hawk Eagle in Central America.) We were in the Canopy Tower Birdmobile…a 4 wheel drive pick-up with two bench seats mounted back to back in the open bed of the truck, facing left and right. I pounded on the roof of the cab and called out Hawk Eagle to make the driver stop. We backed up until we re-found the gap in the foreground foliage that gave us the best view of the bird. It was, indeed, a Hawk Eagle, and it did have a crest…but it was the Black Hawk Eagle…and perched…a rare sight indeed! The photo is not great…but the bird was far away against the cloudy sky in poor light and barely visible through foreground foliage…so, all in all, after some serious post-processing, I am pleased with a record shot. There would be people who doubted we saw what we saw without it 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. (In the original the bird is so heavily silhouetted that you can see no detail at all, and tiny in the frame.) ISO 250 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1EV exposure compensation.
Maine spring edition: American Kestrel
American Kestrel: Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Wells, Maine, USA, April 2022 — It was too cool to ride my trike the other day, despite being a lovely sunny spring day, so I took a walk at Laudholm Farms to see how spring was getting on there. This Kestrel was working the forest edge along the southern boundary of the farm, where it butts up against a chunk of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge land. It would not give me any better view than this, but I will take what is on offer and be happy. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5.6 @ 1/1000th.
Maine spring edition: Immature Red-tailed Hawk??
Immature Red-tailed Hawk (I think): Arundel, Maine, USA, April 2022 — I think! This is one of those birds, or one of those birding situations, where I can not be 100% confident of my naming. I saw it fly over the road while out on my eTrike. My first impression was just a raptor with big wide wings…and then when I got off to the side of the road and got my camera out…all it would give me is this back view…and the angle of the shot, and the way the bird was perched, makes it hard to judge the body proportions and especially the length of the tail. For what it is worth, the several photo based AI birding assistants I have access to give Red-tailed Hawk about a 70% chance of being right. And Red-tailed Hawk is certainly the most likely as we have more of them than any other hawk…which is probably why I wanted it to be something else…something more exciting. Still, any perched hawk is a good bird. 🙂 And I did do my due-diligence…checked every field guide I own…and studied several of the photos I took. I have blurry shot of the underside of one wing which mostly supports Red-tailed, but that is as good as I can say. Anyone who know better, feel free to correct me. Always willing to be corrected. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed and enlarged in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
White Hawk
White Hawk: Golfito, Costa Rica — We stopped at an overlook where we had a great view of the Pacific and the Osa Peninsula across the “sweet” bay, and there, too far away and tucked into the foliage across the road, was this White Hawk. This is heavy crop and a considerable enlargement. I resorted to + 3 EV exposure compensation…trying to keep detail in the white feathers…but honestly at that distance it did not make a lot of difference. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4.5 @ 1/1000th. (+ 3EV).
Roadside Hawk
Roadside Hawk: Playa Blanca, Costa Rica (Osa Peninsula) — The sun had set on our Macaw adventure, and we were headed back to the bus, when we came up on this Road-side Hawk, perched at eye-level, back in the foliage of a tree between the road and the beach…literally on the road side. 🙂 The Road-side Hawk is probably one of the most common hawks all though Mexico and Central America. I had already switched memory modes to use multi-frame noise reduction as the light levels fell and I managed this portrait. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 5000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Short-tailed Hawk
Short-tailed Hawk: Corcovado National Park, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica — I am pretty sure this is a Short-tailed Hawk. I don’t remember what Edwin, our the guide called it, and it was overhead for just a few seconds, as we aboard the wagon for the trip back down the Rio Rincon after our short hike in the forests of Corcovado National Park. Not great photos but the best I could manage under the circumstances. So, more about the bird this morning, than the photo. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4.5 and f4 @ 1/1000th and 1/640th. The second shot at + .7 EV.
Cooper’s Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk: Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I was at the little drainage pond at Southern Maine Health Care in Kennebunk, photographing mostly dragonflies, when the resident pair of Red-winged Blackbirds suddenly increased their racket. The male in particular seemed upset, and his high pitched alarm calls were echoed by an even higher pitched call that I thought might be a Cowbird…but I had not seen any Cowbirds around the pond. Suddenly a big bird burst out of the dense little evergreen at the pond’s edge, where it had obviously been sheltering from the RWBB’s attentions, and dove into the birch cluster above the RWBB’s nest. The RWBB was on it in seconds, and it flew out and across the parking lot to one of the ornamental trees. Cooper’s Hawk! By shape and size and what little feather pattern I caught in flight. The RWBB was not giving it any rest, and before I could get the camera on it, it flew back across in front of me and landed up under the eves of the forest abutting the pond, about 40 feet from me. I had been using full 1440mm equivalent on the dragonflies, so I was zoomed in way to far, but I got off a couple of shots, and then attempted to zoom back for the full bird. By then, though, only seconds later, the RWBB had moved the hawk on again, and this time escorted it out across the parking lot until it disappeared into the trees behind the shopping center an eighth of a mile back out toward Route 1. So what I have is a grab shot head shot of the bird. Not a bad shot considering. And a Cooper’s Hawk is always a good bird to see. 🙂 Nikon B700 at 1440mm equivalent. Program mode with what are becoming my custom birds and wildlife modifications for this camera (Program, Vivid Picture Control, Low Active-D Lighting, Medium movable spot focus, -.3EV exposure compensation). Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Broad-winged Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I need to remember it is hawk migration time here in Southern Maine. This hawk came up off the roadside as I rode up on it on my eBike, with something largish in its talons, and I tracked it in flight (not easy, or perhaps even safe, to do while riding a bike) until it landed in a tree overhanging the road ahead of me. I carefully parked my bike before I could actually see the spot where it landed, got my camera out and walked ahead, peering up into the branches. And there it was. Now that I have the photos for reference, I can see that the prey was a snake of some kind. Red-tailed is the default hawk in Southern Maine, but I am pretty sure (and both of my ai photo recognition programs agree) that this an immature Broad-winged Hawk…which makes it a migrant passing through. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.