The Family Tree

[Marina Scarr]

Felt very lucky to finally have an opportunity to photograph an eastern screech owl family in this nest tree after 2 years of failure. Thanks to the forest biologist for the email tip on the adult being present during the day. The adult never opened her eyes all the way during this shoot. She dozed with her owlets in the cavity below. The light was poor, and I decided to work as many small in the frame images as possible to show off the nest tree and the environment.

Critiques and comments welcomed and much appreciated.

Canon 1D4, Canon 500L F4 IS
F5, 1/100sec, ISO 1000, manual mode
Feisol tripod, Jobu head

[Troy Lim]

Sweet shot Marina!

[Doug Brown]

Really like your choice to include more habitat Marina! It adds a lot to the image.

[arash_hazeghi]

Very cool Marina, the family looks great and so does the habitat. I could see a bit taken off from the bottom

TFS

[Lorant Voros]

Awesome tree and image. Very nice habitat. Well done, Marina.

[Randy Stout]

Marina:

Very effective image, with tired out parent and alert chicks!

I like the slight lean of the tree, sense of environment. Yes, I could see a sliver off the bottom as Arash suggested, but not much.

The bokeh of the highlights in the bg to the left of the tree is just a bit distracting, and I might take a very light pass with lower contrast brush in that area, but that is a very minor concern.

Cheers

Randy

[Bill Dix]

Wonderful idea to take a step back and present this as an environmental shot. Works very nicely. Of course I'd love to see one closer in as well, but perhaps that will follow. I agree that a slight smoothing of the background might make it compete less with the birds.

[Mitch Rapp]

I agree with Randy about the tree foliage to the left. It's refreshing to see someone realizes its more than trying to fill up the frame with your primary subject(s).

[Karl Egressy]

Cool image, Marina. You did very well capturing this unique scene.

[Alan Murphy]

Love this shot Marina. The setting, scale a feel are just wonderful.

[keith mitchell]

Good thinking on your part Marina it would have been a great temptation to get in close, maybe you did ,love the way you have presented this.

Keith.

[William Dickson]

A very cool looking work of Art. Great work Marina :S3:

Will

[Daniel Cadieux]

Love it!! So awesome to see a multi-level wildlife home like this. Good thinking in going wide. I agree about the vegetation's highlights at left, but all-in-all this rocks.

[Loi Nguyen]

Sweet image, unique. What a wonderful multi-level dwelling these owls have. Tara's. loi

[Ivan Ellison]

Just wonderful, great subject and a real nature shot. One that I feel sums up why we do what we do.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Like the placement of the nesting holes and how the trunk is at an angle yet the OOF vegetation and greenery on the left balances the elements.
Shows one does not always have to aim for full frame shots of birds.

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image Marina! I like the composition, setting and interesting sleeping arrangement.