Red Tail Hawk Gets a Mouse

You know it's a good day when you have the day off work AND you get to see a hawk catch and eat a mouse in front of you.

I wish these were better, but there was a lot of brush to shoot through.

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Some shots I got before he took off to grab the mouse...

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wow.. Nice poses

Is it not Great to be at the right place at the right time ? :)

Good stuff...

Cheers, Don

wow Cara... these are AWESOME!

Thanks everyone :)

These are superb Cara Rose - the in-flight capture does it for me. Fascinated with the deploy of his nictating membrane with the swallowing action. I thought this only happened in a "danger" situation.

Nice, Very nice. These shots made my morning, thanks
Are you still using rented lenses?
I could not find any EXIF data.

Such a great series !!!!!!

amazing that it swallows the whole thing

my favs are the closeup of the head, so very sharp

and the last photo where it is flying

Thanks everybody :)

The flight shot made my day... actually it may be the highlight of my year thus far! Between this and the owl the last week, I'm ecstatic :D

Bob- I had my rented lenses with me but had my new (used) 300mm f/4 L IS on while I was taking these, or the 300 with a 1.4x tamron TC. I've never been so happy I invested in that lense!

If you want to see the exif data, feel free to go to my Flickr account (the link to my photostream is in my sig), these were all linked from there, and if you go to any picture and click "more properties" on the right, it gives you more information than any sane person needs to know :)

Dennis-- the nictating membrane... that's the third eyelid, right? I know he had it down in the fourth shot in the series since the mouse was struggling, but I don't know why he had it down when he swallowed it though.

Armando- I'm with you on how amazing it is that he swallows it whole. It was too cool to watch.

Great shots ! but I don't think that is a Red-tailed, I'd guess Red-shouldered.

I'm pretty sure that red shouldered hawks have white banding on the tail and wings.

WOW! Great series CaraRose.

Cara, I would agree with you. Based on the pictures in my bird books, it looks a lot like a variation known as a light juvenile, red-tailed hawk, probably just about a year old. The image that you have of it flying pretty well confirms this, at least in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, you were definitely in the right place at the right time. Great images. If these were mine, my quandary would be which ones (plural) would I hang on my wall. Continued good luck in this.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

Great shots of action at work. Can't believe he ate that mouse whole! Great job capturing the moment!!

Thanks WesternGuy, thanks Eric :)

Young redtailed hawk.. seems to be an intermediate between western and eastern races .. possibly a mix of both.

Double thanks, Paul :) I missed you in my last reply.

Is he likely to stay in the same area for a long time, or will likely migrate out eventually looking for a mate?

Too young to mate right now. Depends on the weather and food base as to how long it stays.

Way to go, Cara. That would have been interesting to watch. Congrats on getting some super photos out of the experience. My fave is the 5th, where the mouse is hanging from his mouth.

That is one smug predator. Great shots. All I have ever seen on hikes are hawks endlessly circling high in the air. I wondered if they managed to catch anything.