Drab Landscape

Out on an errand on a back country road I saw a large flock of small birds, probably redpoles. The birds were scattering all about. I stopped the car and jumped out with my camera and saw there was a harrier hawk among them.  The settings were all wrong for me to dash off a shot. As I watched the hawk circled the birds closer and closer until they were like a ball of dark stars. Suddenly they fell as a cluster and vanished, leaving the hawk to circle alone in the sky.

It was at that point that I got my act together and took the photo. There he is just left of centre. You can see that the clouds come down to the horizon. Hidden behind them are the mountains, which would tower above the hawk.