Now that the leaves have fallen from the trees, I have a much greater chance of reaching one of my goals for this winter of capturing some better shots of hawks.
One of the biggest challenges at my local marshland park is that most of the trees on which hawks seem to like to perch are inaccessible—the trees are surrounded by flooded swamps on one side and dense vegetation on the other.
This past week I took my best hawk shots in quite some time when a fellow photographer pointed out this Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) on the limb of a distant tree. We were able to move a little closer to the hawk, because it was facing away from us, but when the water started to get ankle-deep, I had to make do with the conditions I had.
I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open for the sights and sounds of these magnificent birds and hope to get a bit closer to one in the coming months.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Lovely, love taking pic’s of raptors too, hope you find lots. Looking forward.
Great photos. I hope your feet didn’t get too wet.
At least you found one sitting still!
Better hawk shots is a wonderful goal though it sounds like you need hip waders for Christmas. I like this hawk.
I think you should always show these two photos as a pair; there’s just something fun about viewing them that way.
Thanks, David. I like the idea of the two images as a set. The hawk, of course, is in a different position in each image and I took them from slightly different positions too as I tried to move forward a little.