Thanks, Larry. Which crane image? (There are two).

If I knew the exposure beforehand I could have made the same photo. But that is pretty much impossible when you are facing a variety of situations. When that is the case, Shutter Priority with AUTO ISO can save the day in the right hands. You’ve got to have a good idea on the needed EC (exposure compensation) and you need to have an easy way to change the EC. That dial on the a-1 is worthless; you need to assign EC to someplace else.

Everyone that I contacted agrees 100% with Ryan. The bird is a Cooper’s Hawk. My bad. That was my assumption until I talked my way out of it. The few coops I have seen always look somewhat blocky/square headed.

with love, a

Accipiters, in my opinion, are notoriously hard to identify when perched with their back to you and legs and feet (relatively thick on a Cooper’s) not visible. I agree with Ryan that the tail shape seems more like a Cooper’s, and the body shape (widest portion of chest halfway down the body vs. widest at the shoulder), relatively long tail, eyes appearing to be close to the front of the head (vs. halfway), and seemingly large head also point to Cooper’s. I am slightly disturbed (re ID as a Cooper’s) by the glimpse of the flanks (not narrow dark streaks as on an immature Cooper’s) and narrow white at the end of the tail (although the latter gets worn down). But overall I think it’s a Cooper’s, but many people are much more expert than me at accipiter ID.