Tales from behind the lens by highly acclaimed WNY wildlife photog
By Dan Jordan
I have become a wildlife photographer in my retirement years. I travel extensively to find wildlife, but most of my encounters and the resulting images are from right here in our local area.
My home is on the edge of a wooded area with some wetlands not far from our lawn. There is a thicket across the street and a hawthorn tree under which I placed several bird feeders. Next to the hawthorn tree, are a couple of old dead trees, which I call our woodpecker trees. They are poked full of holes and a variety of woodpecker species and nuthatches frequent them.
There are almost always birds around to photograph. In the winter, when there is snow in the air, I like to put out peanuts (unsalted, whole in-shell) for the blue jays. I like to capture images of them making off with the whole peanuts. They act like they are getting away with something when they grab the peanuts in their beaks and quickly make their escapes.
This story, however, is not about the blue jays, at least, not directly. One day, in early January, I was photographing blue jays and peanuts, when all the birds suddenly disappeared. I figured there was a cat or a hawk around.

Sure enough, I looked up and spotted an immature Cooper’s hawk in a poplar tree about 50 yards away from where I had placed the peanuts. I captured a large number of images of the young hawk as it surveyed the area for a potential meal. It was snowing heavily which added to the drama of the images of the hawk.
This image shows the hawk perched on one leg, something that birds often do, in this case to keep its extremities warm. After capturing way too many images of the perched hawk, I decided to grab focus on its eye and wait for it to fly. I was in my Bronco, which I use as a bird-blind quite often in the winter months, to stay warm. So, I was prepared to wait out the hawk.
I didn’t have to wait long. When it launched, it headed in my general direction.

After only a second or two, it made eye contact with me.

From that point on, the hawk flew directly toward me, then flew over me and off into the distance. While I have photographed Cooper’s hawks before, I had never had such a closeup encounter as this. One that I will remember for a long time!

That’s pretty close!
Nature is so interesting when one pays attention to what it has to offer. And sometimes, it can be pretty exciting too!
I plan to submit more in this series of anecdotes of my local wildlife encounters in the future. If you have any questions or comments for me, or even suggestions, I can be reached at dan@jordanphotog.com. Thank you for your interest in my work.
