There is nothing better than being with good friends when photographing birds, especially when trying out something new.

Thanks to Robert Houde and his wife France for sharing his secrets and knowledge on where and how to photograph these beautiful birds.

It was great having another good birding photographer, Dom Cantin, who was also initiated, with us too.

Canon 40D with the 400 5.6L lens @ 1/800, f6.3, ISO 500, + 1 1/3 exposure compensation, fill-flash, at 400mm lens focal distance.

The usual image processing/treatment. Cropped for composition vertically. I decided to leave the cloud in the lower left corner.

I forget to mention - a good book to help observers and photographers identify birds of prey in flight is: Hawks - From Every Angle -
How to identify raptors in flight
By Jerry Ligouori
With forward by David A. Sibly

Mike