Red-tailed Hawk with nestlings in cave nest on cliff

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This Red-tailed Hawk has her nest in a cave about a hundred feet up a steep hill and on a cliff. She has two young nestlings seen in these pics.

As can be seen in the second pic (photo before I crop it tightly to enlarge it) the nest is very large. This nest has been used intermittently over the past 7 or 8 years and new nesting material just gets added to what is left from previous nestings.

My camera and lens combo I used for these pics provide the equivalent of about 900 mm or 16x's the view with our eyes so even before I crop the photos they are very enlarged. This allows me to take photos with less disturbance to birds especially important for nesting birds. SeEtta

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