Fledgelings

From Photo of the day 2011

This is the "official" shot for this post. It makes the cut for this size, but it is cropped and a bit over worked (some saturation, sharpening, and cropping) for viewing large size. It is good for the light available (bright overcast) but not a great shot quality-wise. It looks cool here with the white background, the bird looks like it is not framed.

The story behind the angry adult red-tailed hawk above follows:
I found a number of early fledgling red-tailed hawks yesterday while walking at Elk Lake. Of course, I hadn't packed my camera (or binos!) so was left squinting at them and listening to their calling. Today I packed my camera and headed back out as they were young and likely to be found in the same area. It took me a bit but I did find them in the end - two - and just learning to follow mom around a bit on their wings. I got a few pictures of the babies hanging out and flying, but I was shooting towards the sun in bright overcast conditions. Quality not so good - the bird watching very cool. I included one of the babies in flight below.

From Photo of the day 2011