A very, very cool looking raptor and one rarely seen in the area I live in northern Colorado so I kind of ‘cheated’ to get these shots. This particular one was actually a captive bird owned by a local wildlife education group, Nature’s Educators. It used to be used for falconry but is now used as an ambassador to the public.
I took these images during a photo shoot way back in January and in going through my pictures from the past 12 months, I realized I had never shared them. Someday I hope to get to photograph one of these in the wild.
Harris’s Hawks were previously known as bay-winged hawks or dusky hawks but John James Audubon gave it its present name in honor of his friend and supporter Edward Harris. These birds are primarily found in arid climates like the desert Southwest and Mexico. They are unusual in that they are very social, living and hunting cooperatively with each other in packs.
