On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This week, we have Albatrossity, 3 days of JanieM in Maine, and we finish off the week in Mendocino with Steve from Mendocino. I almost don’t want to post this one because I fear it’s the last Mendocino post and I love them so much.
It’s not unusual for us to have so many On the Road submissions in the queue that you don’t get to see your pics published for a month or two. At the moment, though, we have enough submissions for this week and then that’s it –nothing at all after that. So if you have been thinking of sending in some pics but haven’t done it, this would be a great time to send them in and get to see your pics published with a short turnaround.
Albatrossity
Something a bit different this week. We’ve all heard the phrase “watching like a hawk”, and that fierce gaze is often the very last thing that a rodent or snake sees. But they also watch people, particularly photographers who are carrying long lenses and behaving suspiciously. Even as they are flying away, they often peek over their shoulder to just keep track of you as they wing off. So here’s a collection of images like that, showcasing the tremendous variety of plumages in a single species, Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), and all photographed this winter or last in my home state.
Young redtails have a pale yellow iris that gradually darkens over their first two years or so. This bright-eyed youngster was just making sure that I was not up to some shady business.
Many of our local redtails, representing the Eastern subspecies (B. J. borealis) are very pale, and that look is quite common across much of the Great Plains. But a bird this white, in much of the east coast range of this subspecies, would cause quite a lot of excitement!
This youngster eschewed the coy over-the-shoulder glance, favoring instead the direct predatory gaze as it took flight toward me.
Some redtails retain a light iris in their second year, like this one, and even some keep it into the third year. The iris of this dark-tailed Harlan’s subspecies (B. j. harlani) is starting to change to the dark brown that it will have when it grows up more.
Those pale Great Plains birds grow up to look like this. Pale and ghostly, and this one also has an eye that is slowly turning dark brown.
Dark-eyed glare from a pale-tailed light-morph Harlan’s Hawk. The local borealis birds come in only one color morph (light), but Harlan’s have three (light, intermediate and dark).
Sometimes hawks will fly directly away from a would-be photographer. And sometimes they circle back just to check you out, for some reason. Then you get the full glare like this.
Some of my favorite looks at redtails happen when they fly away, but then bank back toward you to check you out. This borealis bird, with fully adult brown eye, is showing off that handsome eponymous red tail.
Like the Harlan’s subspecies, the Western (B. j. calurus) subspecies comes in light, intermediate, and dark color morphs. This dark-morph bird also is showing off a dark eye and brick-red tail, but note that, unlike the eastern birds, these guys have lots of banding on those red feathers, and darker uppertail coverts compared to the light versions seen in the previous image.
Finally, I think that the combination of an icy eye and a dark hawk is amazing. If looks could kill…
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SiubhanDuinne
Wow! Gorgeous photos, as always, and what a neat idea for an organising theme!
Betty
Great photos with such variety. The banded tail is gorgeous.
Lapassionara
I love these. Thanks for sharing them with us.
WaterGirl
Love the side-eye from these guys.
Just by the looks on their faces, who wins the don’t fuck with me contest? These guys, or Tikka?
WaterGirl
Big thanks to BigJimSlade for sending in a 5-part series that we’ll see next week. Thanks also to BretH and Paul in St. Augustine for your submissions this week, and to Albatrossity and Billin.
I love you all, and I can’t decide between whether I should say something encouraging to the rest of you, or call you slackers! So please consider this an ala carte menu and choose the one that will be most effective.
We don’t need to keep On the Road, but we can’t have On the Road without submissions. :-)
WaterGirl
I did add italics to the OTR blurb up top.
In your own backyard can be taken literally or figuratively. The point is, you don’t need to be traveling in order to submit something. The upcoming post from BretH is from a day trip to a park, and it’s breathtakingly beautiful.
So in the end, I guess I’ve decided on the encouraging approach. :-)
J_A
This is probably a very naive question, but I do have plenty of pics that I could submit, but I do not know the mechanics. How do I submit them, who too?
Thanks
As an aside, about two months ago I was biking along a Houston bayou (White Oak bike trail for any Houstonian) and a hawk took off a tree just in front of me. The scary part, for both of us, is that he took off flying horizontally against the wind, and I was fast approaching with the wind in my back. We were going head to head in a straight line in a sort of game of chicken. He was trying frantically to gain altitude but we were quite close. Close enough to see each other’s very open, very scared eyes. I ducked my head a bit and he was able to go about 1 1/2 feet over my head.
The whole thing was probably 3-4 seconds long, but they were very long seconds indeed. At that relative speed between each other, we would both had been quite hurt.
Moral of the story for young hawks: look both sides before you take off. There are vehicles in the way.
Mathguy
Thanks for these great photos. I really enjoy seeing all of these raptors of the Great Plains, since I frequently spot these types of birds on my longer bike rides out into the rural areas around Omaha.
Albatrossity
@J_A:
I know! I know!
It’s easy-peasy. At the top of every OTR post, there is a box/button labeled “Submit your photos”. Just click on that, and you will be taken to a form where you can add photos and text. Then you click the “submit” button at the bottom of that page, and they get sent to WaterGirl, the curator of this series.
WaterGirl
@J_A: I will add just one thing to what Albatrossity said.
I do recommend that you write your introduction – and whatever you want to say about each photo – somewhere else and then just copy it in to the form.
Maybe one time out of 100 the form might hiccup if your wireless is flaky or if you submit photos that are so huge that the form can’t handle it, and then you have to redo your submission.
In that case, it’s much less aggravating if you can simply paste the same text back in. :-)
P.S. It’s best if any individual photo is not bigger than 1-2 MB.
mvr
These were great as usual. And instructive. The point about the flexing feathers is helpful. I’m not sure I ever get close enough to see eye color or some of the detail you are using to identify different species and subspecies of hawks, but I will try. We’ve been busy emptying our basement for some foundation work so it has been a few weeks since our last prairie walks. But soon.
Thanks!
Chat Noir
Beautiful photos as always! I love birb watching in my backyard.
MelissaM
Stupendous! Those red tails are remarkable. I’m struck by the size of those claws – feet – talons, whatever. When they are tucked in all smooth, they disappear, but the size of those things in #1 makes it clear you don’t want to be near them when they’re grabbing!
HinTN
All wonderful looks at your beautiful bird, but the wings on the downbeat following the launch really tell an amazing story. Thanks, as always.
Princess Leia
I find raptors breathtaking- thank you for highlighting them today!!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: It worked with the anit-vaxers.
I have another one that I’ve got ready to go, just need to write and submit them. Glaciers!
Kathy
So beautiful and restorative. Thank you!
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was happy to see your submission this morning, but of course I already had the week planned, so that will go up next week.
Congratulations on week 1 ( presume) of full-time work with a predictable scheduled!
Yutsano
Raptors! What a great way to start the morning on Balloon Juice. Thanks again Professor Albatrossity!
BigJimSlade
Great pictures (as usual) Albatrossity!
I saw a young bird of prey on top of a lamp post on a morning walk last week, but only had my iphone (8) on me, so the picture isn’t good enough to really get the details. But you could see some soft, tawny feathers on its chest that looked like the youthful type you see in young birds.
J R in WV
@J_A:
I have a friend who was biking in Central Park in NYC, going fast downhill, when a hawk stooped on a tiny rodent beside the path, and hit his front wheel. Fatal for the hawk, put John in hospital with broken bones and a concussion from going over the handlebars. He recovered well, but what a way to end your bike ride!
David, thanks for the great photo set. The hawks are one of my favorite bird types, along with owls. Living in the wooded hillsides of Appalachia, we have lots of both families of birds. I talk with the barred owls many evenings. But I will never have the photos you take…
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Fabulous photos and excellent commentary, as always. Many thanks!