Red-tailed Hawk kiting at Mussel Rock 12/19/25

I was out chasing dolphins again today, but in between intervals of looking for them I took some footage of a Red-tailed Hawk kiting near me.  Watching them kite like this just mesmerizes me.  I could watch it for hours (and I have, in the process of putting together this video :-)).  It was a bit of a challenge because the lens I was using was a bit on the long side for how close the hawk was to me most of the time.  And the large lens was catching that 25+MPH wind very nicely, which made keeping things steady with just a monopod quite tricky.  But it came out better than I was expecting.  Of course that’s at least partly due to selective editing.  There were some shots that can really make you dizzy, but those got left on the cutting room floor.  

And I know I say this on a lot of my video posts, but especially with this one - if you can watch it on a big screen, especially something like a 4k TV, I recommend it.  The hawk was so close, the details are really cool.