FEATURE PHOTO

Red-tailed Hawk   -  ID#2791

This image of the Red-tailed Hawk coming in for a landing was photographed during a controlled birds of prey in flight shoot. I positioned myself close to the perch that the bird was going to be flying towards. Rather than use up my image buffer, I tracked the bird as it was approaching the perch. When the hawk spread it's wings for landing, that is when I began shooting a sequence of images that resulted in this frame filling image.

While it would be much more rewarding to capture an image such as this with a specimen in the field. Controlled wildlife shoots do allow us the opportunity to practice our techniques so that when the time does arrive to shoot such subjects in the wild we will be prepared. When I work with controlled wildlife subjects I strive for dramatic images which are difficult to shoot in the field.