Bad day for Red-Tail

[lark]

These are not as good as I've seen here before, but it is today's series.Terrible, gray, overcast morn, not much to shoot and this REd Tail hawk comes stooping right by me. Gets into a fight with his prey, loses the battle and flies up to this tree (at least a football field away).
I'm shooting with a 100-400 w/1.4x attached so he's obviously out of "good" range but lets see what this thing will do.
What he doesn't know is his troubles are just beginning.
This turned out to be a great exercise set to show what can be done in raw if you have really bad pictures!
Here's the tree he's landing in....

[lark]

here's the red tail

[lark]

and waiting for him is the bird from hell....

[lark]

just as he gets comfortable......what the?!.....

[lark]

this guy wouldn't quit! He was actually hitting him! I could see the hawk flinch!...over and over.....

[lark]

Finally ..enough!!!..he's outa here......
The mockingbird actually FOLLOWED him to the ground and got in another two WHACKS before he left him alone.
Looks like a little chase plane here, huh?

[lark]

this is the only one that came out reasonable, and it's not good enough.
But I wanted to see what could be done on the extreme in RAW....these shots are absolutely beyond the reach of this lens config.....taken on a poor lighted day and yet they can still have impact. I learned a lot and am REALLY impressed with what can be salvaged from the "trash" with RAW.

Could I have made these any clearer at this distance and these conditions?