Our family was coming home from running an errand when we noticed a red-tailed hawk sitting in the grass near the driveway. I dropped everything and ran for the camera. When I got a little closer I could see that he was standing on a dead rabbit that had been in the road earlier. I snapped a couple of shots before he got spooked and tried to fly off with the rabbit. It was too heavy and he dropped it soon after taking off. I like this picture. You can see guts hanging out of the bottom of the rabbit. What’s up, Doc?

I had the camera set on continuous mode and kept shooting until he landed on the roof of the church next door. The shots looked great when I reviewed them on the camera’s tiny screen. When I got them onto the computer they were horrible! The camera had focused on the background instead of Mr. Hawk. ARG!!!

I tried hiding in my car and waiting for him to come back, but that didn’t last long… I haven’t developed that kind of patience yet. A while later, Kari noticed he was back, so I grabbed the camera and tried to be a little sneakier. I crouched down behind the garage and was able to take a few more pictures before he flew off again. This time he flew to a light pole and from there, off into the distance. I kept shooting him against the sky and the focus was good.

I’m relatively pleased with the pictures. I think I need to get a more powerful zoom lens so I can shoot for farther away. I’m looking at something like this. I also learned how to get a hawk to come to your yard for a photo-shoot. I wonder if they like groundhog?

Here is the rest of the set…

P.S. I kind of gave up on Matt 365. That was lame. I got tired of remembering to take a picture at 11:00 at night, searching around the house, and finally taking a picture of dirty laundry or something. It was somewhat fun while it lasted.