[Leica] Hawk Hill.....

[red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone)]

Ok.. we got there... and we were excited.  Friday was truly beautiful.
Sunny, light breeze, just plain beautiful.  There were something like 400
hawk spottings.  Not a bad day at all.

Let me describe the sightings..... You are on top of a hill overlooking the
Golden gate and valleys.  Wonderful.  On top of the hill are a bunch of
really sincerely involved birders with binoculars and some Zeiss and Leica
spotting scopes.  They are there to count birds for the annual... bird
count.

Far away there is a spot in the sky.  Not nearly 3 miles away, but maybe 4
miles away.  Out comes a shout,,,, Red Tail Juvenile.... and the counter
adds one to the count.  My wife and I can not even see the spot in the sky,
no less tell you if it was a UFO, bird, 747, or a Pterodactyl.  It goes like
this all day.  Once in a while, we see what is obviously a crow ( wrong
again, it was a Harrier).

So I have my trusty 400 Telyt with me to shoot the birds..... do you know
how big a hawk is at a distance of 4 miles on a 35mm frame when shot with a
400 MM lens?  The size of the film grain.

Then the high point of the day.....  raven ( resident pest bird that hangs
around looking for a treat form the humans) comes over and sits down not he
railing, not 20 feet from me.  Now that guy I could get in a photo..... he
filled the frame beautifully, and sat there while I shot away.

Got the film processed and scanned.... and found that it is hard to focus on
the bird's eye with a 400mm lens at F6.8.  Really hard.

Oh well, we had fun......

Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net