Owls... Share Your Owl Photos

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A serendipitous find! I discovered this quartet of young great-horned owls just as rain began to fall and I had started to return to my car.
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Many Lovely images in this thread! One of the natural history writers I was raised on, Ernest Thompson Seaton, described some of these N American owls most vividly. Here is a Spotted Eagle Owl, widespread across Africa's savannas, and they also do well in suburbia. So do the cosmopolitan Barn Owls. The more ecologically literate Wine farmers in the Cape erect owlboxes and perches in vineyards to attract owls for natural controllers of rodents and larger insects. This individual had flown onto a low perch at sunset, only to attract a mob of passerines. It then flew past me to escape its abusers. Lucky shaft of light caught the eye: taken with 300 f2.8G VRII on D500

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Great-horned owl adult female and foster owlet. The presumably inexperienced adult female lost her three chicks to starvation. They were found surrounded by intact prey items so it appears she ceased tearing up their food before they were able to feed themselves. A more developed rescued/rehabbed owlet from another location was fostered into the empty nest. The adult female and male acted as protective and doting parents and successfully raised this foster owlet (as well as three of their own the following year).

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I don't know why Barred Owls are so hard for me to get a good shot of. I see them all the time. I just never catch them in an engaging environment. This one flew across the road in front of my truck and landed in a tree. Its sharp but I didn't really dig the background. And that annoying out of focus foreground tree I failed to see when I was shooting. I was so preoccupied trying to get him clear of other branches I missed what was right in front of me. duh.

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I walked under this branch where it crossed over a sidewalk. Looking behind me I came face to face with this great-horned owl that had fledged the previous night. I clicked the shutter while slowly backing away and whispering, "you are so cute, ummm, I mean you are so fierce you top predator you..."

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Chad Huff said:
I don't know why Barred Owls are so hard for me to get a good shot of. I see them all the time. I just never catch them in an engaging environment. This one flew across the road in front of my truck and landed in a tree. Its sharp but I didn't really dig the background. And that annoying out of focus foreground tree I failed to see when I was shooting. I was so preoccupied trying to get him clear of other branches I missed what was right in front of me. duh.

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I hear you. I was fortunate through the spring and summer of this year's pandemic to follow a pair of Barred Owls and their two owlets near daily for months and I have thousands of "serviceable" shots on my hard drive but only relatively few with truly pleasing backgrounds. Though accessible, it is frequently very difficult for me to get good shots of them. I'd like to think that this one of the male was one such decent shot. D850/600mm f4, 1/8 sec, f7.1, ISO 360, no crop.
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I've gotten lots of great shots of Short-Earned Owls and many of them quite close, but this one is among may favorites because I remember the day, the marsh was really pretty and a storm was coming. The owl was busy hunting and I like the whole scene. Funny how my memories have such an influence on what kind of photo I like.

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Chad Huff said:
I've gotten lots of great shots of Short-Earned Owls and many of them quite close, but this one is among may favorites because I remember the day, the marsh was really pretty and a storm was coming. The owl was busy hunting and I like the whole scene. Funny how my memories have such an influence on what kind of photo I like.

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I am the same way some of my own favorite photos are only special to me, but I can see why you like this one. It's a great shot.
 
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Earlier this year, I met up with this Spotted Eagle Owl sitting under a copse of trees. So settling down and trying to understand if it was sick or injured, I waited ....a few minutes, then the owl stood up to reveal a Cape Golden Mole, Chrysochloris asiatica, it had settled over.
The owl began to feed, but then carried its prey away, waddling for a few metres where it settled to feed again. It had been a cool misty morning at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, but the day warmed up and the cloud over broke.
So the mole had presumably made the fatal mistake to emerge during daylight near the owl's day roost...Hard for a hungry owl to ignore such an easy meal. Nikon D850, 70-200 f2.8E + TC14 III

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Nikon Z7 58 f1.4G Nikkor, f8, ISO2200

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Nikon D850, 70-200 f2.8E + TC14 III, f5.6, ISO2200

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Nikon D850, 70-200 f2.8E + TC14 III, f5.6, ISO2200
 
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Great-horned owl siblings

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Little Owl Enjoying The Shade

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Now What's This Shortie Seen?

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Skylark For Breakfast?

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Bored!

My contribution to some terrific Owl images in this thread.
 
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Since these forums launched I've dug a bit deeper into my files and taken a fresh look at some of my earliest digital images. Here's one of a Great Horned Owl from 2004 shot on my first DSLR with its whopping 2.6 Mpixels of resolution and my old Nikon 600mm f/5.6 manual focus lens.

Nikon D1H, Nikkor 600mm f/5.6 P lens @f/5.6, 1/160", ISO 320
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Hermann said:
Any comments?
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Cool bird with great facial expression. Nice shot.

In terms of editing feed back, I might crop to a 4x5 aspect ratio and place the bird a bit to one side or the other of the smaller frame. I'd probably try pushing the bird to the right (as viewed) to keep more of the branch and tree. I'd probably also try some work with the Shadow/Highlight tool to bring down the bright background highlights and bring up the face details and eyes. That and a gentle vignette around the frame which often helps to contain the view and also tends to help with bright background highlights.
 
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DRwyoming said:
In terms of editing feed back, I might crop to a 4x5 aspect ratio and place the bird a bit to one side or the other of the smaller frame. I'd probably try pushing the bird to the right (as viewed) to keep more of the branch and tree. I'd probably also try some work with the Shadow/Highlight tool to bring down the bright background highlights and bring up the face details and eyes. That and a gentle vignette around the frame which often helps to contain the view and also tends to help with bright background highlights.
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Thank you. I'll have a go once I find the time.

Here's another one. Same species, same roost, not the same bird. ISO 6400 this time, that's a bit much for the D7500. Some brightening of the shadows, using control points in NX-D.
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DRwyoming said:
I'm fascinated by owls of every shape and size and love it when I can find one in the wild to photograph. Sometimes I find them by noticing small birds mobbing them and follow the racket, sometimes I spot likely owl nests throughout the year, especially if there's signs of recent white wash and owl pellets on the ground and sometimes I cruise around likely owl habitat in late winter on cross country skis and notice where owls are nesting for the year. But I sure love capturing images of owls any time of year.

Here's a Burrowing Owl shot by the roadside in Central Washington who was kind enough to pose for me for a while in soft evening light.

600mm f/4 with TC-14 @850mm, f/5.6, 1/200", ISO 160

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So what Owls are other folks seeing and capturing on their sensors?
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Beautiful shot !!
 
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