Day 1

Yesterday I discovered that red-tailed hawks are not easy to photograph.

I have been driving the route between Norfolk, Va., and Elizabeth City, N.C., almost daily now for more than a year, and I have seen as many as six hawks on one leg of the drive. I see at least one hawk every day. Sometimes they perch on the fences that divide vast soy and corn fields from U.S. Highway 17, which runs along the Dismal Swamp Canal - a historic trench that is itself a boundary. Beyond it lies the broad wilderness of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Yesterday, northbound from Elizabeth City, I spotted a (breeding?) pair perched on a fence about six miles north of the North Carolina/Virginia border. I had taken along my trusty Canon SD1200 IS point-and-shoot camera in the hopes of capturing just such a sighting. I pulled off the road (rather abruptly) and reached for the camera, but by the time I had lifted it, they were halfway across the wintery field, making for a distant stand of long-leaf pines. Tomorrow, I will take a Nikon SLR and a long lens, and park a good distance away. I'll let you know how that goes.

I created this blog as a means to follow the hawks living along U.S. 17 - to identify individuals, photograph them in their habitat and identify their territories. I also hope to learn more about these exciting raptors through interviews with naturalists and researchers, which I will share here. I'll also discuss interesting historical and natural facts about the swamp and farmlands that comprise these hawks' habitat.