NM - Raptors

I took this Bald Eagle photograph just after sunrise in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Area. This is one of my favorite photos of the trip so far. I love all of the variation of orange in the sky and how clearly recognizable the Bald Eagle is despite just being a tiny silhouette. This style of photograph is called backlit since the light source is behind the subject.

I took this photo is of the same Bald Eagle in the same tree a few mornings earlier. This was taken from the opposite side of the pond. The rising sun behind me provides the warm oranges on the trees and the pink shades on the mountains. After I took this shot, I had assumed it would be my favorite shot of this Bald Eagle, but I was wrong about that.

Staying with eagles, this is my first ever Golden Eagle. I wish it was a better quality photo, but the eagle was flying high up a long way away. I saw the bird while I was driving south from Bosque del Apache towards Truth or Consequences. I pulled the car off to the side of the road and took photos since I guessed correctly that it might be my first Golden Eagle.

From the large eagles (28” to 40” in length), I now jump to the opposite side of the size spectrum with the very diminutive American Kestrel (9” to 12” in length). I took this photo in the afternoon of my first day. The snow had stopped, but the sky was still completely cloud covered. By overexposing the shot, I created this completely white background. This style of photo is called high key. The term originated from the early television days when movie cameras had limited dynamic range. The main light was called the “key light” while the secondary light was the “fill light”. High key meant that the main light was high (or strong) making sure to light up the scene very brightly. Doing this meant that details in the shadows were easily distinguishable but differences in the bright areas were washed away. In my photo, the subtle differences of cloud variations are completely lost creating the pure white background.

Here is another American Kestrel which I photographed south of Truth or Consequences. The kestrels were relatively common but often hard to photograph well because of their small size and that I usually saw them at a distance.

The second smallest hawk of the trip is this juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper’s Hawks are very similar. The fact that the wings almost project farther forward than the head is one of the field markers of the Sharp-shinned. The Sharp-shinned Hawk is generally 10” to 14” in length.

This photo of a Northern Harrier is also among my favorites of the trip so far. This was taken just a couple of minutes before the high key American Kestrel photo above. I think the fresh morning’s snow, clinging to the shrubs, provides a wonderful background. This type of photo can be rather hard to capture since it is extremely easy for the camera’s autofocus system to lose the hawk and lock onto the background because the background is so close to the hawk and of similar color and texture. Northern Harriers tend to be about 18” to 20” in length.

The Northern Harrier was by far the most common raptor that I have seen during my trip. This photo was taken in the Rio Grande just below the Percha Dam. I captured the hawk just as it was dunking its head and upper body for a rinse. I first saw this hawk at a substantial distance. I slowly made my way closer to it over a period of about 10 minutes before capturing this image.

While certainly not as common as the Northern Harriers, I saw Red-tailed Hawks every time I was at Bosque. This hawk is easily recognizable as a Red-tailed Hawk by its dark belly band. Clearly distinguishable features like this belly band are useful when capturing a broad environmental photo with the bird small in the frame. The Bald Eagle’s white head is a similar characteristic in the second photo of this post. Generally, my photos of the Red-tailed Hawks this trip have not been particularly compelling, almost uniformly taken from quite a distance, which does not help. Red-tailed hawks are somewhat larger than Northern Harriers with lengths of 18” to 26”.

This final image is of a Rough-legged Hawk, similar in size to the Red-tailed Hawk . Like the Golden Eagle, this is a new species for me. Also like the Golden Eagle, it is not a great photograph. Overall, it has been a good week for raptors with two new species, several nice photos, and two photographs that I absolutely love.