Who says that working from home doesn’t have its own adventures? Happily typing away on an email, I got a text message from Big Boy. “There is a Hawk in our driveway”. While pulling into our driveway with the car, he spottet the bird of prey eating away at a fresh kill direct in front of our garage. Only good, that the Olympus OM-D E-M1X and the 40-150mm F/2.8 with the attached 1.4 tele converter was just a grip away…..and then get up close with the eyes of a killer.
“DO NOT EXIT THE CAR”, I texted back to Big Boy, while grabbing the camera. While slowly approaching a window, I turned it on (battery was charged), checked ISO and shutter speed. With moving birds you need a very short shutter speed. I started shooting out of our living room window, then carefully opened up the front door. We have a thread curtain in front, to keep the flies out. Slowly sticking the lens through the threads, I snapped away.
The Hawk saw me (or rather the lens), without any doubt. But as I kept retreated, he just kept eating the dove he had just killed. The Hawk didn’t even escape when eventually Big Boy exited the car. Our distance to him was less than 10 feet. Amazing.
I sticked along, waiting for the Hawk to fly away at the end of his meal, set the drive mode to continuous in order to make sure to have a fighting chance to capture the moment.
In the end I managed to get him taking off, with the mirror of my Vespa scooter just sticking into the image, but barely missing the bird flying away, the rest of its victim in the fangs.
Really worth mentioning is that the brave and fearless Significant Other volunteered to clean away the mess afterwards.
So, home office has its adventures after all. And luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Have your camera always charged and know how to operate it under stress. It might just pay off once in a while….
Have a great Monday!
Marcus
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