It was around 10 a.m. on a Sunday that this “Sunday-Morning Bird” made its appearance.
Lori Palesch received an honorable mention for her photo in the Wildlife & Nature category of our 2015 Lens on Lake Minnetonka photo contest.“It’s my first-ever recognition!” Palesch says with a laugh.
Palesch explains that on that particular morning on her deck at her Minnetonka home, equipped with a Canon Rebel camera, she saw something flash out of the corner of her eye and dart into her neighbor’s yard. “Finally I saw him,” she continues. “I slowly walked toward him as he was looking for prey in the woods, and I got super-close. I took about 100 photos of that guy.”
Another thing that makes Palesch particularly proud of this photograph is its unfiltered realism. “It’s really popular these days to edit and filter. I did no editing and it’s unfiltered. I’m so proud of that.”
Palesch kept her eyes peeled for what she thought might be a juvenile red-tailed hawk, saying that she spotted the feathered friend while on a walk a couple of days later. “He was really big for a hawk.”
Palesch, who is a physical education teacher in the Hopkins School District, generally likes her three kids and the family’s black Lab to be the subjects of her snapshots, but some nature shots do make their way into her collection.
“Photography is something that I love. People have said before that I should do it as a side project, or if I retire from teaching,” she says.
