Image above: Sedona-based photographer Ted Grussing photographed this red tail hawk at Lake Pleasant in Peoria. “This was the takeoff,” he says. “It’s just the magnificent wing positions. It’s kind of like a ballet. Then you’ve got those beautiful talons. The talons are about an inch and a half long, and they lock into the prey and kill the prey with their talons.”
Featured here is a mountain blue bird and two Western blue birds in a pond off of AZ-89A in Sedona. Ted estimates he photographed about 3,000 pictures. “These give no warning when they’re going to take off. All of the sudden, they’re just in the air. And if you don’t start shooting before they take off, you don’t get them in the frame. So I tend to shoot a lot,” says Ted. Photo by Ted Grussing.
Ted took this picture of a white crowned sparrow in Bubbling Ponds Preserve in Cornville. “I’d been out shooting the ducks, parrots and egrets and came back to the parking lot, and this little guy was just perched in a weed, and I thought, ‘Geez, that’s beautiful.’ So I got him,” he says. Photo by Ted Grussing.
A raven soars high in the Grand Canyon. “They’re just fantastic soaring creatures. We have them all over Sedona,” says Ted. “The raven, after he ate food, just put his wings out like that and leaned forward into the wind. And he lifted off, and you can see the shadow of his feet on the rock below to the right. And it was just a shot of total freedom.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
An American kestrel hawk off Bill Grey Road about four miles to the West of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Cottonwood. Ted tells us that he loved the wing position and flare of this photo. “It’s like he was going for a kill,” he says. “They eat small bugs. They eat grasshoppers, small birds, lizards.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
A juvenile bald eagle takes off from a cliff over Lake Pleasant in Peoria outside of Phoenix. “Eagles do not get the white heads and white tail, where it’s all white, until they’re about five or four-and-a-half years old. This eagle looks like he is probably around three-and-a-half or four years old,” says Ted. “This is the exact second he took off. He’s still got a couple of talons touching the rock. But they will kind of squat, and then explode with their legs. And their wings are up, and he’s ready to do his first wing beat.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
Ted photographed this bright red Northern cardinal eating at one of his neighbors homes in the Village of Oak Creek. Photo by Ted Grussing.
Below is a male yellow warbler photographed by George Andrejko, Arizona Game and Fish Department photographer, in 2014 at the Page Springs Hatchery. This shot was captured during the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival during a wildlife photography tour around Bubbling Ponds in Cornville. George shot this during breeding season and told us the bird was “calling” or looking for a mate. “I like the fact that it’s engaging,” he says of the photo. “You can see his beak is open, and he was calling … You get the eyes and focus. I had a shallow depth of field, somewhat, where the focus is on the bird, rather than what’s behind the bird or around the bird. And the bird was on my plane. So I didn’t have to shoot up or down. He was right on my level.”
“This Rufous hummingbird was stopping in Sedona on its migratory journey from its breeding grounds in Alaska to its wintering grounds in Mexico, 3,ooo miles each way. I titled this photo ‘Beija-flor,’ the Portuguese name for hummingbird which translates ‘flower kisser.’ It didn’t miss a blossom, gathering the energy of the nectar it needed for its travel,” says Beth Kingsley Hawkins, the executive director of the Sedona based The Hummingbird Society, who took this photo.
Beth also snapped this shot at Esalen in Big Sur, California. You’ve most likely seen this specific bird if you’ve spent any time in Sedona. “We are fortunate in Sedona to have this red-helmeted male Anna’s hummingbird year-round. About February he begins his courtship song. Then he will zoom up as high as 130 feet and, beak pointed down, zoom back again making a penetrating whistle sound as the wind passes over its outer tail feathers. Counted in body lengths, a hummingbird in love is faster than a jet plane,” says Beth. Photo by Beth Kingsley Hawkins.
An osprey Ted shot at Bubbling Ponds Preserve in Cornville. The bird was coming in for a landing. “The ospreys are just amazing birds. They cruise over water looking for fish. I mean, their eyesight is phenomenal. When they find one that they think they can get, they will go into a dive. They’ll hit the water about 80 miles an hour, and they go submerged, and they come up beating their wings and getting the fish into the air. And then they align it properly, head first, tail to the back, so it’s aerodynamically good. Not a lot of drag.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
Another osprey Ted photographed at Bubbling Ponds that was flying above him. Photo by Ted Grussing.
Ted shot this osprey as it was taking off from a rock on Lake Pleasant. “I was eye level with him. That’s the kind of shot you like getting. When you’re eye level with them and you’re not shooting up and down,” says Ted. Photo by Ted Grussing.
A heron photographed at Watson Lake in Prescott. “He was standing on a rock out in the water a couple hundred yards from shore. I was maybe six or eight feet from him, and he just posed. Never flew. No fear,” says Ted. “There you get all the variation in color and fine detail of the feathers.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
This in-flight heron was shot late in the day at Bubbling Ponds Preserve in Cornville. Ted says the lighting was perfect. “I shoot everything that flies because they’re much more fun,” he says. “They’re incredibly beautiful birds. They’re kind of prehistoric looking, but they’re just incredibly graceful in flight.” Photo by Ted Grussing.
