The young hawks have hatched. Because they were living at the bottom of nest, the newborn nestlings could not be seen from the ground. With the help of our community’s maintenance staff, I was able to gain access to the empty fourth floor unit right next door to the nest. I opened a living room shutter, and was able to photograph one of the adult hawks at very close range, less than a dozen feet away. I was so involved in photographing the adult hawk in such close proximity that I did not notice the presence of two of these nestlings until I was saw the image later on my computer. The hawk had placed its body squarely between itself and my 400 mm lens, hiding the two nestlings behind her. I made about thirty photographs of the protective hawk, and in just one of them, for a very brief instant, the heads and beaks of its tiny white nestlings were visible.

A young nestling and its parent appear to be echoing each other’s emotions at the moment. The adult hawk opens its beak to sound a warning. It seemed as if it was speaking to me. Meanwhile, its offspring opens its own beak as well.

In early May, I left Arizona to photograph in Havana, Cuba. When I returned later that month, the pair of young hawks was able to leave the nest, and began making short flights around Sagewood’s complex. I found this young hawk sitting on a fence surrounding a fountain in one of Sagewood’s courtyards. Its white feathers have fallen away, revealing the characteristic Red Tailed Hawk plumage, glowing orange and brown in the morning sun. It allowed me to come within a few feet, and seemed to have no fear of man.

One of the immature hawks becomes an integral part of Sagewood architecture, perching on the corner of one of its apartment buildings just as the early morning light creates a dynamic nest of geometric shadows behind it. The work of both man and nature are combined within this single image.

As the young hawks grew, their mobility increased, and they learned how to take advantage of the works of man. A few weeks before they left us, I found one of them brazenly drinking from an ornamental fountain in the center of a Sagewood courtyard. Instead of moving in on the hawk, I walked well away from it, and photographed it at a 200mm focal length. I used my spot meter to expose on the brightest part of this image, allowing much of the image to fall into shadow.

The result becomes a lyrical landscape image, as well as a documentary photograph. It places the hawk, illuminated by a golden shaft of early morning light, within the world it will soon come to know quite well. This fledgling will probably spend the rest of its life moving between the open desert and places such as this, where it will bathe and drink in water harnessed and displayed by man.

As May turned into June, the family of four hawks departed from Sagewood. The nest and its accompanying layers of guano were removed, and the apartment building was cleaned. No traces of these hawks are left. However our memories of the event, bolstered by these documentary images, will always remain with us.