Assault Gone Bad

A Northern Harrier was making an assault on a Red-tailed Hawk when the the tables suddenly turned on her. Notice in the second photo the Hawk is putting the brakes on which is forcing the Harrier over top of him and in front and in the third and fourth photos he now becomes the pursuer.

I don’t really remember what I was focused on at the moment although I believe it was a coyote at a distance but my camera settings were not set for action. So when this battling duo suddenly showed up in front of me all I had time to do was follow and hold the shutter button and hope for the best.

Seriously, out of 25 photos I’m really surprised that any of them turned out since my shutter speed was only 1/800 of a second. Typically not fast enough. These four, although not optimal by any means due to the low shutter speed, actually aren’t all that bad. I was actually quite thrilled with a couple of that and just the fact that they were so good.

My favorites of the four are the second and fourth. The fourth one has such a beautiful form for both of them as they enter into a tight banking turn.