In the Sky: 2011

hawk and crow in the sky
In the Sky

A crow harasses a very patient red-tailed hawk high up against the flat sky before a storm.

I followed a red-tailed hawk around this afternoon, trying to get the perfect photograph, but I did not succeed. The hawk was circling a fairly large valley that is a local county park, riding the thermals and gusts on an unusually hot day on the front of a storm. I couldn’t follow quickly enough on foot so I was actually driving my car and parking it, hopping out and looking at the sky for the hawk. It was always gracefully circling elsewhere, so I quit the pursuit and headed home, followed by the storm.

But I did remember this photo I’d taken several years ago with an older digital camera. The photo itself is a little grainy, but I like the interplay of the two birds in this one. The crow was really dive bombing the hawk and you can see a few feathers missing in one wing. But the hawk didn’t divert from its circling on the rising wind, and I presume the crow eventually lost interest.

And neither bird paid attention to the leading edge of the front just entering into the photo, the tip of a big thunderhead pushed along by winds. As today, it likely developed into a cataclysm of hot and cold air, then settled down into rain.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Today

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading