Northern Hawk Owl

[Wilson Hum]

Photographed with a Canon 30D last winter. Although this owl was used to people baiting it, this image was taken as the owl was flying across a field.

[Fabs Forns]

Wow, the head turn and stare make it for me!

Big welcome!

[Linda Robbins]

Welcome to BPN! What a beautiful bird, and the background is lovely as well. Good exposure. You mentioned that the bird has been baited before, and he does look like he is checking you out to see if you might have a mouse handy....love that stare!

Linda

[James Johnson]

The exposure looks on-the-nose (I know owls don't have noses) and the framing is wonderful. It looks as though the owl is braking for a turn, so placing him near the center of the photo seems a perfect choice. I like the blur of the far wing, which also shows you were shooting at a large aperture, and the resulting nicely-out-of-focus background keeps the viewers attention on the owl...so your autofocus is working well (unless you manually focused?). You selected a great, clean background that is minimally distracting. I think some would say it is too busy, but I feel it adds a sense of place...successfully illustrating the habitat.
Would the flat lighting be helped by a fresnel flash?