You may have heard the adage that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time it's needed. I want to always have a camera with me but a heavy bag (20 pounds or more!) loaded with a DSLR, four or five lenses, a flash etc. make it easy to decide do without. A cell phone is handy when nothing else is available and I've gotten some good images form my iPhone. But, I wanted more.
So, for Father's Day, I asked for a Canon G12, a high level point-and-shoot that fits the bill for my desire to have a camera but without the need for a beast-of-burden to carry it! (CLICK HERE FOR INFO) I took it on a recent trip to San Francisco and got some great images (more on that later.)
On Sunday, July 22, I was visiting my son Jonathan and his lovely wife Kim in Troy, Alabama. he wanted to show me the new Trojan Arena under construction on the university campus. As we arrived, my first view of the building proved it was worth my while to have brought my G12.
As we approached the building, we had to pass near some Live Oak trees. We heard what I thought to be hawks crying in the trees. We saw one Red-tail Hawk fly from the tree to another one nearby but the cries from the trees keep coming. At least two more hawks flew from the tree and circled in the air nearby.
I then saw one hawk on the ground at the base of the tree. At first I thought the hawk was injured due to the way he was holding his wings.
We were within 25 feet when I realized he was holding a squirrel in his talons. I am not familiar with the habits of these birds of prey but I think he must have been hiding his catch from other birds.
The hawk appears to a be a juvenile and as such was probably more interested in his meal than fleeing the possible threat we presented. I began to snap photos and take some videos as he returned to his meal. He kept a pretty good watch on us but I was able to circle all the way around him trying to get the best light.
At one point, I was hidden from his view by the trunk of the oak tree and approached to within 8 feet. When I leaned around the tree to get this close-up image, he appeared to warn me that if I got any closer, I would be the next meal!
While I would have loved to have had my big lens, either 70-200 or 100-400, I used the little G12 to its fullest. The lens offers a 28 to 140 zoom (35mm equivalent) and it did a pretty good job of capturing the dark feathers in the shade of the oak. The mottled light offered some challenges and at times I added a touch of flash to try to fill in. I'm not sure the flash actually improved anything since I was using the built in flash and at that distance it tends to be ineffective.
I finally tired of the effort after about 30 minutes and left the beautiful creature to his meal.
As I prepare these images for printing, publication and public viewing, I realize that some will be less than thrilled with the gruesome images of one creature devouring another but that's nature. Yes, animals were injured in the making of this blog! Just not by me!
And the image I started out to get:
On the way home, the G12 proved to be a valuable companion once again:
