Autumn Landscape With Red-tailed Hawk

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I don’t consider myself to be much of a landscape photographer. I’d like to be better at it than I am, but it’s a different discipline for me and I’m still engrossed in learning the ins and outs of nature photography. That said, if I see a pleasing landscape, I’ll attempt to photograph it.

A short time ago I was driving on a road through our desert when I saw a Red-tailed Hawk perching on a dead tree. That’s something I see fairly often but in this case the hawk had the massive bulk of Picacho Peak in its background. I stopped and made this image.

I like the scene because of its simplicity but also because, to me, it typifies our desert. It certainly isn’t a scene that one would likely find elsewhere.

Image made with a Canon R5, Canon EF 400mm f4 DO II lens+Canon EF 1.4x telextender, M setting (auto ISO), ISO 1600, f5.6 @ 1/4000, +1 2/3 stops exposure compensation.