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Two Red Shouldered Hawks visiting on a tree branch by my house outside of Terre Haute, Indiana. Taken with Nikon D50 and 70-300 mm zoom lens at 300mm. It took me about 2 years to get this shot! I first saw one hawk sitting on this same branch in the summer of 2014. I went in the house to grab a camera and it didn't have batteries in it, so I ran back in and got that taken care of. As I was peeking around the corner of the house to try and take the picture without startling the hawk, one of my neighbors pulled up in his truck and hollered " Hey Dan, check out the hawk up there!" He hadn't seen my camera. The hawk flew off and my friend apologized for messing up my picture. I said no problem, he's been up there a lot. But, after that, the hawk was spooked and wouldn't come near my place. Fast forward 2 years to 6-19-16. I kept hearing the hawk screeching and noticed it seemed to be very close to my house. I peeked out there and saw a hawk on the limb. So, I got my camera again and quietly creeped up to the corner of my house, trying to just have my camera lens peek out in to the open where the hawk could see me. I figured I would be able to get one or two pictures before he flew off. To my amazement, a second hawk flew up and landed on the same branch! I took over 20 shots before one of the hawks flew off. This was the the best. They seemed to be having a conversation! I got several more images of one of the hawks, but none were this special. The temp was in the 90's and very humid. I didn't realize it in the excitement of the moment, but my lens had condensation on it from coming out of an air conditioned house into the humid weather. Fortunately, I was able to do some tweaking of the image to come up with something that looked pretty decent.

Description
Two Red Shouldered Hawks visiting on a tree branch by my house outside of Terre Haute, Indiana. Taken with Nikon D50 and 70-300 mm zoom lens at 300mm. It took me about 2 years to get this shot! I first saw one hawk sitting on this same branch in the summer of 2014. I went in the house to grab a camera and it didn't have batteries in it, so I ran back in and got that taken care of. As I was peeking around the corner of the house to try and take the picture without startling the hawk, one of my neighbors pulled up in his truck and hollered " Hey Dan, check out the hawk up there!" He hadn't seen my camera. The hawk flew off and my friend apologized for messing up my picture. I said no problem, he's been up there a lot. But, after that, the hawk was spooked and wouldn't come near my place. Fast forward 2 years to 6-19-16. I kept hearing the hawk screeching and noticed it seemed to be very close to my house. I peeked out there and saw a hawk on the limb. So, I got my camera again and quietly creeped up to the corner of my house, trying to just have my camera lens peek out in to the open where the hawk could see me. I figured I would be able to get one or two pictures before he flew off. To my amazement, a second hawk flew up and landed on the same branch! I took over 20 shots before one of the hawks flew off. This was the the best. They seemed to be having a conversation! I got several more images of one of the hawks, but none were this special. The temp was in the 90's and very humid. I didn't realize it in the excitement of the moment, but my lens had condensation on it from coming out of an air conditioned house into the humid weather. Fortunately, I was able to do some tweaking of the image to come up with something that looked pretty decent.