Red-tailed flights in Turner Valley
On my return from the two separate visits with Great Horned Owls near High River, I drove past Okotoks, through Black Diamond and Turner Valley and then back to Bragg Creek. I counted more than twenty five hawks before I reached Priddis. Along the way, I stopped a couple of times that were in interesting locations.
One Red-tailed hawk was hunting from a wooden gate and fence dividing a farm from the highway. This hawk dove once while I was set up – it was great to observe an attack from close range thanks to a long telephoto lens. It returned to the post empty-taloned but then launched out over the field and grabbed a mouse when it neared the far side. Too far for a decent photograph but great to watch.
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Red-tailed Hawks in flight
With Red-tailed Hawks back in our area, I’m still enjoying the novelty of their return. I went out on the weekend and found a few more who I had the opportunity to photograph in flight. The snow stole a couple of shots by throwing the auto focus off but it added character that more than made up for those.
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Red-tailed Hawks have returned to the prairies
Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) have the good sense to avoid winter on the prairies and they head south in late fall each year. It’s always exciting when they start to return and I have been seeing them more and more over the last couple of weeks. A little while ago, I found this one perched in a great, wild-looking tree along Highway 8, west of Calgary.
I could see the hawk was getting ready to fly so I watched from the ditch for a minute until it launched. There was a second hawk, presumably its mate, in a tight stand of trees so I figured that would be the direction it flew.
It landed beside its partner and when I drove past them I could see a nest buried in the far side of the trees. Photographs of the nest would not be in their best interest but I hope to see chicks fledge later in the spring.
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Autumn with a hawk in Springbank
The crops around the Springbank airport have all now been harvested. This leaves the fields shorn bare except for the uncollected bales of hay. The attraction drawing hawks is the exposed ground which presently offers little protection for field mice and the like. I have spent a fair bit of time walking and driving along the range roads to photograph some of the activity while it lasts. This Red-tailed hawk, one of the light morphs, was absolutely beautiful. It flew between a couple of posts before launching out across the meadows.
(please click on any image to open a higher resolution version)
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Prairie Wildlife: Red-tailed Hawks
With spring having taken control, the hawks have returned in earnest to the prairie and the foothills around Bragg Creek. During my hikes and drives, I often cross their path. When they wait long enough for me to pull up my camera, I really enjoy photographing them in flight. I’ve had a couple nice flight series so far and wanted to share a few ahead of a larger raptor project I’m working towards completing in the fall.
When the sun is low in the sky, the warm light can beautifully illuminate the stretched out primary feathers (the fingers), the splayed out tail feathers (particularly true with the Red-tailed hawks) and the patterns in the covert feathers (the layers covering the wing at the base of the primaries). With the sun behind, the backlit feathers can glow in a striking fashion which I find very appealing.
Christopher Martin Photography 