Frozen in Time

I reckon this photo needs some explanation. First of all, you probably can’t tell, but it’s two soaring hawks in the sky above our house. The hawks that usually hang around our property are Ferruginous Hawks, and I’m pretty sure these were they (them?). They are gorgeous graceful birds. I have sort of a difficult time with the fact that they are predators, though. On the one hand, I think they are beautiful and I know they have to hunt to live, but I feel kind of sorry for the birds, cottontails, etc, that are their sustenance because I enjoy those animals that inhabit our property as well.

Melody (our dog) hates these hawks with a passion. One day, one of them was sitting on the post on the corner of our balcony and Melody was roaming the yard. The hawk started screeching at Melody, which in turn made Melody bark at the hawk. So now whenever Melody sees the hawk, she barks at it until it decides to leave. It’s actually all pretty comical since Melody is in no danger of being carried off by a hawk.

This photo makes me covet a DSLR with lenses that I can trade in and out. All I could do to get this shot was put my camera (which is not a bad one, but not an SLR) on full digital zoom and shoot. That’s why it’s not cropped. Zooming in on pictures taken in full digital zoom makes them very grainy and you lose whatever sharpness you might have had. So that’s why it’s not cropped.

The other thing I should tell you is that we normally only see one of the hawks at any given time. In fact, this morning when I was waiting for Marlene to pick me and LG up for our lunch date, one of them was sitting on the fence on our road and flew off when she drove up the street. But when we got back a few hours later (after a visit at Grandma’s), we were treated to the sight of both of them soaring around the front of our property.

So, I’ll keep trying to get the best shots of these beauties that I can with my digital zoom and saving my pennies for a DSLR and some fancy lenses.

Taken January 11, 2008.