Weekly Raptor

These photos are from an outing on October 28th, when we headed down to the Dansville area to check out some public hunting land there. Michigan has a fairly extensive system of privately-owned, but publicly accessible land in addition to state-owned parks and wildlife areas.

The first place we tried had a large field of soybeans left standing. We arrived early, and everything was covered in frost when we got there. While we didn’t scare up any rabbits, the hawks and Ritka worked the field well.

Sometimes things happen to fall into place. I was tracking Rusty flying over the field, and she happened to cross such that the moon showed up in the photo.

Here Shelby is heading to perch on a glove.

Shelby and Ritka checking out a part of the field.

And here is Ritka bounding through the frosted soybeans well before breakfast.

All the photos were taken with a Nikon D2Xs and Nikkor VR 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 800, and cropped, resampled, and contrast adjusted in Corel Photo-Paint.