Spent sometime at Chassahowitzka WMA early this morning. Started at 7am and was still on the same road at 9am! Taking video and snapping some shots one of my favorite moths.
But the star of today was this Red-shouldered Hawk! First noticed the hawk fly towards a cluster of oak trees and as I looked for him the hawk flew off again landing on the branch of a pine tree.
Grabbing my camera with the 400 lens, knowing there is no way I was going to get that close to this hawk using my 70-200 and all I wanted was to get a pic to upload as an observation in iNaturalist.
One thing about early morning photographing, not only your lens fog up but your viewfinder. This was frustrating. It wasn’t easy trying to wipe off the lens and viewfinder, while quickly changing the camera settings. And you keep thinking this hawk is going to fly off the next time you look up. I am so grateful that this hawk stayed perched on that branch for as long as it did.
I slowly worked my way through the saw palmettos inching my way closer, attempting to get in a position where I was able to get more of a color break in the background. (less sky and more tree)
The hawk stayed perched.
Finally after 460 photos, I got this close!
Florida Nature Magazine
Still a lot of work before the projected date to publish this magazine and a possible there may be website change.
Have a great and safe day venture out photographing nature.
