Series of Pic's leading up to my 2009 Favorite

[Dwinal87]

Hayden Valley, Yellowstone, NP, August 30th, 2009. Late afternoon with very little light left in the day. My girlfriend and I stopped at an overlook to watch some Hawk's using the strong wind cutting across the valley and up the slope to hover and look for dinner.

Near the car was a big crow, squawking and just making a general nuisance of himself. I'm pretty sure he had some sort of food and was afraid the Hawk nearest us would come and take it from him.

Anyway, the Hawk swooped a bit too close for the crow and away he went...





Hey, where is he?



AH-HA!!



He's seriously coming after me?!



Yup...he is...



Talon's deployed, ready for contact...



Wait for it...



NOW!!!





Oh, and after this little sky dance a Bald Eagle came down the valley and was jumped by what I think was a Falcon. This was a LONG ways away so the picture is cropped quite a bit...pretty cool all the same.




Man, I love Yellowstone!

[Celebration]

1. oh man I DO TOO

These are FANTASTIC!!

Seriously, thank you.

Yellowstone I have been to once. Everyone needs to go, sans tour bus, please.

Okay, two of my kids actually had jobs there doing things like scooping ice cream. I might not have even gone there but for that. Once there, ARE YOU KIDDING? Thirty paces off the tour route and it is unbelieveable! We are talking paradise.

I have to say I liked the sulphur type springs-- the smellier, the better.

This reminds me I need to go back, digital camera in hand this time.

And Hayden Valley? Yeah, we once had a dog named Hayden :)

[Dwinal87]

6. Thanks Celebration!

I'll try to find some time and pull out some of the better hot spring pictures and post them. Mammoth Hot Springs were our favorite, although they all were great!

[Mz Pip]

2. I have a lot of admiration

for people who can take pictures of things moving, especially birds. Birds are fast and unpredictable.

I really like that you included the shot where one of the birds moved out of frame. Shows how hard it really is.

Great photos.

Mz Pip (who rarely shoots anything that moves. ;-) )

[Celebration]

3. the secret

Take a WHOLE BUNCH of photos and only post the ones that work. ;)

[Mz Pip]

4. Another secret

Well, probably not really. I shoot in "sports mode." The camera just keeps clicking and hopefully something good will come of it. Even then it's a crap shoot for me.

But it's true about taking a lot of pics to get a couple of good shots. I needed a couple of cute shots of a kitten I rescued for an adoption web site. Kitten was not interested in posing on the pillow. I took over 100 pics to get the 4 that were decent enough to show the cute fuzzball at his best.

[Dwinal87]

5. Yup.

Set the camera to continuous (only 2.5 fps on the D40) and keep the button held down. I think I took something like 14-16 frames in this series, a couple lost focus and 2 were of the valley-sans birds. The Moose, Bison and Elk were much easier to photograph but not quite as exciting to watch.

[Mercury1972]

7. Beautiful Bird

Hey, Dwinal! Did you know that the name "Gavin" comes from the Welsh language and means "Hawk of the Battle" or "White Hawk" after Sir Gawain.

Thank you for posting these for your nephew!

Love & Miss Ya!
-Missy

[JeffR]

8. OMG

That's a fantastic sequence.

Wow!