I, on the the other hand, try to sneak in some opportunites to photograph wildlife. I got lucky today and found a cooperative GBH and a frustrated RTH that missed it's lunch and the Squirrel was toying with the Hawk in another tree 10' away from it. .

1. Someone needs a back scratcher.

Wonderful shot Duane!!! You have an awesome place to take a lunch break!!! The rth is showing that squirrel where it will end up if it dose not quite it in shot #3

Nice hawk captures Duane My favorite is #3

Garen

That is some good food you got here Duane, nice way to 'feed' the camera I like the contortionist in the first shot, you may look at this shot with a slight crop off the top and then in from the side to remove the upper left tree Same little tweak on #2 to look at.
#3 is a very nice shot, I swear one of these times a RTH is going to pull up a talon like yours and will be wearing a Timex(TM) on it Nice pose, nice BG maybe a bit light??
Got lunch plans tomorrow Time well spent sir!

Karl

That's one twisted heron!

3 & 4, the hawk looks like it is actually deep in thought. Nice capture on those. I really like the bg in 3, lovely shot.

Tim

Duane - -

You're lucky to be able to make it out during your lunch break... Nice result

Lil

Wow, me thinks someone got really close to that RTH. A little soft in spots but still most very excellent as Bill and Ted would say

Ken

Either my EXIF viewer isn't working or it's not intact...sorry about that folks. I usually like to have it there.

Thank you for all the suggestions (I forgot to add C&C in my original reply ) and I will take them into serious consideration on the next images I process.

As far as being soft in some parts I agree 100% and I'm getting a bit frustrated because of it. Not sure if it's me or the equipment. I thought it was because I crop most of my images...these were full frame other then composition...that's not it. Then I thought maybe I need to get my shutter speed up..did on most of them...same result.

I'm not sure what's going on and I'm wondering if I need to send my lens in to Canon for 'calibration' (not sure what they do when people do this?) or if it's something with the 40D.

Either way...I thank everybody for the replies. This is the closest I have got to a RTH..I could have gotten closer but I didn't want to make it 'gun shy' with people....it's very well mannered as it is.

I want to thank Karl for taking time to send me a pm helping me with my focus issues. He suggested some things for me to try (which I will do/test tomorrow ) but it seems alot of my issues were in the post processing stage when it comes to 'softness' of my images I post on the web.

I'm still adjusting to the information I received but I wanted to thank him and the other members on here that are willing to help us 'noobs' to photography. It's people like this that go out of their way to help a total stranger that reassure me that there are 'true' people out there.

Sorry to bring this topic back up but I wanted to get an opinion on the change.

You got some really nice shots here Duane, great comps all around.
I was thinking they were a little soft, I'm sure you got some great advice from Karl.

Love the GBH, never seen a pose quite like this one.
RTH shots are really good poses. Your last addition is excellent, super sharp, great light.

Good work, who needs lunch.

Kirk

Duane
Looks like you got yourself on track buddy! That is a wonderful improvement in the PP of this image.

The advice you got from me was merely my eagerness to share what so very many here on this forum have helped me with. I think we all remain 'noobs' to certain aspects of photography or processing as it is always changing.

I couldn't be happier for you, as I mentioned I thought the shots were good, it was just in the finishing and you took a big step forward

Karl

I love #3, thanks for sharing!