Burrowing Owlet on Set Up

[Marina Scarr]

This little cutie-pie Burrowing Owl was photographed at a nest with 4 owlets. A friend of mine made me a perch to test, and I figured I'd give it a whirl, not really knowing how the owlets would react. I set it up outside the ropes, and as you can see sat some distance away (having photographed this at 1000mm.) Within about 5 mins, one of the owlets approached the perch with curiosity. Once he realized it wasn't a threat, he jumped right up on it. I had already positioned myself with the green background and sat down on the ground waiting. The light was a little high as you can see from the catchlight higher in the eye and the shadow on the right eye, but I was pretty happy the owlet took to the perch so quickly and squawked for me! The fact that I can see it's feet so clearly doesn't hurt either.

Canon 1D3, Canon 500L & 2.0 @ 1000mm
F11, 1/1000sec, ISO 640, manual mode
Feisol tripod, Jobu head

Marina Scarr
Florida Master Naturalist
www.marinascarrphotography.com (http://www.marinascarrphotography.com)



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[dankearl]

Beautiful Owlet, A bit of a head turn to get both eyes in sunlight would be nice.
Curious, why are you posting in the ETL forum.
Most of us learn from you.

[Marina Scarr]

Thank you, Dan. I appreciate your words. I've been asked to help out a little bit in ETLsince they are shorthanded. I am happy to lend a hand!!! There was a time when a number of photographers on BPN were offering me advice and critiques which is one of the reasons I learned so much.

[Kerry Perkins]

Really sweet Marina. Love the pose, detail, color rendition, exposure, and bg. Good thinking to make this quick setup and get such a nice result!

[Doug West]

Marina...have you tried working on the left eye at all? Maybe you can brighten
it a bit?

Doug

[Colin Gilyeat]

Marina, beautiful image, I really like the pose wit the open beack and the background.

Colin

[Jeannean Ryman]

Not only a cute subject, but a wonderful photo! Love it. :)

[Clyde Hopper]

Hi Marina ,I too am interested in your thought process ,as to why to didn't Dodge the darker eye ? I really like all the details in the photograph ,exp. the perch !

[Nancy Phillips]

The gape and pink tongue add to the photo color scheme. Lovely owlet, background is just right.

[Marina Scarr]

Hi Marina ,I too am interested in your thought process ,as to why to didn't Dodge the darker eye ? I really like all the details in the photograph ,exp. the perch !

Thank you for writing. I just went and checked , Clyde. The answer is that I did dodge the eye a little bit in Viveza. Had I gone any further with it, it would have hurt rather than helped the image.

[Wendy Kates]

This really is a cutie-pie, Marina. I love the pose and the open beak. I agree that it would be worth trying to brighten up the left eye.

[Faraaz Abdool]

Lovely photo, Marina! Lovely green bg, excellent pose and open gape too. In this situation with the high sun I would've used a bit of fill flash to open up the shadows. But it's hard to find something to critique in this beautiful photo!

[Leon Plympton]

Marina -

This is an awesome capture of a reasonably rare bird. Technically speaking, this image is spot-on, re: exposure, composition, etc. Yes, it might have been nicer to be able to capture the owlet trying to stare you down, but what was it the 'Stones' said some years ago? Ah - yes: "You can't always git whatcha want ... "

What seems most interesting to me is how the BG is so oof (which looks wonderful) since you used an aperture of f-11. The BG must've been way-way back there.

A good friend who lives in Polk County (just a few miles from where das Meister (Arthur Morris) resides) has been telling me since Thanksgiving that he's got a Burrowing Owl nest on his acreage. We looked for them on Thanksgiving w/o results. When I phoned him last week to wish him a Happy New Year he told me that he keeps seeing them whenever he checks on his cattle, so I'm heading that way, hopefully within a couple weeks.

BTW: I've always thought that Burrowning Owls breeding season here in Florida was later in the year (climate change maybe?).

Thanks for sharing this on ETL - very inspirational. I've been lurking for quite a while and hope to soon begin posting here.

-leon

[Marina Scarr]

Marina -

This is an awesome capture of a reasonably rare bird. Technically speaking, this image is spot-on, re: exposure, composition, etc. Yes, it might have been nicer to be able to capture the owlet trying to stare you down, but what was it the 'Stones' said some years ago? Ah - yes: "You can't always git whatcha want ... "

What seems most interesting to me is how the BG is so oof (which looks wonderful) since you used an aperture of f-11. The BG must've been way-way back there.

A good friend who lives in Polk County (just a few miles from where das Meister (Arthur Morris) resides) has been telling me since Thanksgiving that he's got a Burrowing Owl nest on his acreage. We looked for them on Thanksgiving w/o results. When I phoned him last week to wish him a Happy New Year he told me that he keeps seeing them whenever he checks on his cattle, so I'm heading that way, hopefully within a couple weeks.

BTW: I've always thought that Burrowning Owls breeding season here in Florida was later in the year (climate change maybe?).

Thanks for sharing this on ETL - very inspirational. I've been lurking for quite a while and hope to soon begin posting here.

-leon

Hi Leon:

Thanks for writing. How about the old adage "There's no time like the present." ? The sooner your get started, the quicker you will learn and reap all the benefits. :bg3:

Yes, the BG was distant, Leon, which makes for a more pleasing BG. I used F11 b/c it's the best aperture when using a 2x teleconverter on an F4 lens [1 stop down from the minimum aperture (F8 in this case) with the teleconverter on.]

The burrowing owls are normally photographable in Florida all year. However, they usually begin sitting on eggs sometime in February. Incubation is about 28 days. I usually begin photographing the chicks late March and into April. They don't normally come out of the burrow for the first week or so.

I will be waiting patiently (maybe not so patiently) to have the pleasure of seeing your first post! :)

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Love it and good advise from Doug and others on the light.

[David N Smith]

Great shot Marina. I really like the head angle.

David

[Bob Miller]

Hi Marina....Excellent work! Love the open beak and those feet!