This is a photo I took on one of my local bike rides near Lake Ontario. I got really lucky and spotted a Red Tailed Hawk out of the corner of my eye. I only had my 70-200 f2.8 on me so I had to be careful not to disturb it, though it was clearly used to people with how close to the bike path it was.
It was eating another bird, what I assume to be a Cormorant. I kept it out of frame for this particular photo as I figured that not everyone would want to see a dead bird. I got the timing just right and got a shot of the hawk pulling out some of the Cormorant's entrails.
This is the closest I've ever been to a wild raptor and I was extremely lucky to get it. I deliberately composed the shot to remove manmade objects from the background, and I feel like the very shallow depth of field makes Lake Ontario in the background seem much farther away than it is. Which is a look I like.
4 Comments
Odd, this is flagged but other images in the contest aren't.
Sorry for the delay, I flagged it myself. I didn't know what would constitute an NSFW image so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
This is a fantastic moment in time and great shot, but I would've liked to see it framed slightly more to the left so the main subject is not so cramped against the left edge of the frame.
Thank you! I got really lucky with this one. I might upload another one I got of the same moment. I think that one might have better framing. But the hawk's just standing there.