Colorado Red-Tailed Hawk - TAKEOFF!!!

Here's a sequence of a Colorado Red-Tailed Hawk taking off from a nest in a tall Cottenwood tree near our house. These were taken with a Canon 55-250 telephoto lens attached to Canon 40D DSLR that was shooting a 6.5 frames/second at ISO 800, F/6.3 and 1/2000 second.

Red Tailed Hawk is just hanging out in his nest when I walk up

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Two seconds later, he starts to make a move - subsequent pictures every 0.16 seconds

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There is a 0.64 second gap (instead of 0.16s) between the picture above and the one below

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I was keeping the camera still for sharpness - too bad I didn't track the Hawk though

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Here's a landing sequence and more Colorado Red-Tailed Hawk pictures