“Hawk!”
“If you are made for flight, intended for it,
you had better find a pursuer, fast.
Otherwise, all that fleeing is going nowhere.”
― Dan Chiasson
As I stood by the roadside, a large flock of birds suddenly lept to the air, spinning and weaving above the cornfield from which they had erupted. They flowed in the air like an apparition, then just as quickly, they descended and disappeared once more. All was still.
Then, within minutes, the pattern repeated, only this time, from the corner of my eye, i spotted the source of their flight, A Red-Tailed Hawk soared high above looking for some unwary prey. As soon as the hawk dropped behind the treeline, the birds settled back down till it’s next visit.
At the time, I did not know what variety of bird this was and assumed they were starlings, since starlings tend to form these groups, the larger ones being spectacular murmurations which seem to be some singular, living thing. As I looked closely at the photo, I noticed that these were in fact red-winged blackbirds. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many together. I suppose they are on their migration to warmer climes.
Nikon D800
Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G I AF-S VR Zoom @ 140 mm
1/160 sec, f/6.3 ISO 400
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Ed Lehming Photography 
Interesting shot! When our pet Yellow Nape Amazon Parrot was very young, while watching a television nature series with us, suddenly a flying hawk or eagle was shown on the screen. She, Tweetie Pie, became hysterical and continued screaming and trying to flee. Now that she’s older and wiser, when she sees a bird of prey on TV, she couldn’t care less.
Interesting
Nice capture and I really like the torpedo shapes. I’ve never seen that many hawks in one place before and didn’t realize they flocked. I always thought birds of prey were loners, I guess because I always saw them alone.
These are not hawks. They are Ted winged black birds spooked by a hawk.
Oops – I’m with you now. 🙂
😀
I thought it was a flock of hawks too … not that I would have recognized it!
One of the problems of being mobile and out of town is that I can’t write my posts the way I would like. I was out of town and only had time to post photos. I’m working my way backwards to update my posts, including this one.