Theres a photographer named Ron Dudley that has an interesting web site worth looking at. Ill give you his fighting Red Tailed Hawks site and you can look at his other pictures. What else is interesting are his thoughts about when they are about to take off. When I thought about it, I think that he is right. After Big Red stretched her wings, she left. I would love to hear what Christine B. thinks. Anticipating Raptor Take-off By Ron Dudley, on September 26th, 2013 I’ve said before that one of the skills that can be of immense value to the bird photographer (and of interest to birders of every persuasion) is the ability to predict the behavior of your subject and one of those behaviors that can be of most value to predict is take-off. Flight shots are often easiest to get during or just after take-off but even then they’re still a huge challenge. It’s much easier to keep the bird in the frame during the launch process if you can anticipate when it’s about to take off. Camera settings can also be changed at the last second so they are more appropriate for a bird in flight than when it’s perched. Many raptors (buteos in particular) often give hints when they’re about to launch. Here’s a few signs I’ve learned to watch for: defecation turning on the perch to face into the breeze a raptor at ease will often stand on one foot. When they put that foot down and suddenly look more alert, take-off may be imminent crouching down. This posture allows them to more effectively push-off with their legs rousing – when a bird lifts its feathers and then shakes them back into place stretching Stretching is one of the easiest to miss, not because we don’t see it but because the behavior makes them look so relaxed that imminent take-off generally doesn’t come to mind. But a raptor that has been perched for a while often needs to stretch its wings in preparation for the strenuous and athletic act of take-off, just as a human athlete stretches before an event. In my experience, a perched raptor that has recently flown is unlikely to stretch just before take-off. Following are several examples where stretching immediately preceded lift-off to illustrate my point. featheredphotography/blog/2014/08/31/fighting-red-tailed-hawks/
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:55:17 +0000
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