A couple weeks ago I started seeing young hawks regularly on my daily lunch-hour walk, and last week I spotted the nest. Now there's always at least one hanging around, and I've seen up to four at a time in a group. I saw activity in the nest less than a week previously, so this may be a recent fledgling.
I'm surprised this came out as well as it did given the 480mm effective focal length with 1/60s shutter speed. Also no tripod and no IS, though I did steady the camera against a tree. Instead of my 60D I used my trusty old 20D, which I keep in my office for "emergencies". San Diego's "June Gloom" helped keep the lighting from being harsh.
Cropped, adjusted levels, added subtle vignette, cloned out sensor dust (my 20d has a *lot*), globally sharpened, selectively sharpened especially around the eyes and beak, and resized. Think that's it.
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Thanks everyone who commented and voted, especially hahn23 for identifying it as a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. I went to both the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park over the weekend to shoot for this challenge, but my best bird photos turned out to be the wild hawk fledglings on the UCSD campus literally across the street from my office. I haven't seen any in the past five days so I figure they've moved on, but I enjoyed them while they were here.
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