Red-tailed Hawk
I was at a local conservation area this weekend working on a close up of some prairie flowers when this Red-tailed Hawk dropped about 15 feet away from me and started in on some very unfortunate little creature... Scared the absolute snot out of me!!! These birds look formidable when you see them circling high above, but when they're killing and eating their prey 15 feet from you, they are intimidating as hell! I snapped a few shots which drew his attention away from his lunch and onto me. He turned and actually stared me down for a good 15 seconds before he took a few more bites of his meal and finally decided to retreat to a nearby perch!!! If looks could kill, I think he would have ended up having me for lunch instead! phew!!!
I was using my 18-105mm for the close up work, so I couldn't get as tight in on this guy as I would have liked. As a result, the image is pretty heavily cropped. sorry about that...
