My wife, dog, and I have created a bit of a “Christmas” tradition. The week before Christmas, we will take a trip somewhere to get away from the Christmas chaos, even if just for a few days. For several years, we would load up and head to St. George Island, Florida, for a week of sand, surf, and, usually, sun. However, the last two years, that hasn’t worked out so well, and we’ve had to avail ourselves of other options. Last year, we visited Tennessee’s Fall Creek Falls State Park although we left a day early to beat an impending winter storm. This year, we stayed closer to home and revisited Devil’s Den State Park in Northwest Arkansas.
We made our first ever visit to Devil’s Den back in early November 2021, and Autumn was still on full display. However, on this trip, we were greeted with bare trees. I expected this would be the case, so I wasn’t surprised by it at all. Also, since I did not expect to do a great deal of photography anyway, I wasn’t disappointed, either. We hiked several trails, and I, of course, made sure to take my camera gear with me most of the time. . .just in case. Nothing was really standing out to me, but, again, since photography wasn’t my top priority on this trip, I wasn’t that concerned about it.
It was late on our last afternoon at Devil’s Den when my wife looked out the window and spotted a hawk sitting on a branch about 30 feet from our cabin. “Oh, wow!” I thought, but I didn’t make much of an effort to try to photograph it. First, I don’t often photograph wildlife, so I’m not very good at it. Second, I figured that by the time I got my camera out, it would have flown away. What was the point?
As the seconds ticked by, I just couldn’t help myself, and I grabbed my camera, 100-400mm lens, and 1.4x teleconverter and began photographing the hawk through the window. After a few presses of the shutter button, I realized that I needed to be outside if I hoped to get any images that were remotely decent.
Sneaking out the backdoor, I positioned myself behind a small stone wall and, keeping my eye to the viewfinder, would press the shutter button every couple of seconds photographing the hawk’s different poses and positions. Out of the nearly 60 frames I photographed, this quizzical pose was one of my favorites.
Ultimately, I was hoping to photograph the hawk just as it launched itself into flight with its wings spread wide. But, after watching this bird for 30 minutes,maybe a little longer, his departure was rather anticlimactic. Rather than a majestic takeoff, he seemed to just fall backwards and to the side in a ball of feathers and was gone.