A juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk in the Santa Monica Mountains takes its first flight. I watched this nest and the mom and dad coming and going for weeks and hoped to get photos/video of the youngsters once they emerged from the nest. Unfortunately for me all the action always happened on the other side of the tree which was on a steep embankment so I could only view it from the one side. On this day when I arrived, the one sibling had already flown off, and I watched this one make its way to the treetop where it stood and flapped its wings for several minutes to build up courage. This is its first awkward and beautiful flight, from treetop to treetop.
Music is Big Mojo - Vadodara by Kevin MacLeod