Winter - Northern Hawk-owl approaches over the knoll.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Winter for us means winter owls. Usually Snowy Owls are a given for us, but none have appeared so far this season. Thankfully a NHO as taken up temporary residence a short 1 hour drive away. The past couple of years a haven't done much owl photography (time constraints), but this year I made it a point to give myself time and opportunity to photograph these wonderful winter visitors...

Ideally I would like to see the complete tail, but it does give a sense of the slight knoll it had to clear to get to its prey. Even for flying owls I like to get down low!!:D

Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/3200s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, slight crop for comp, baited.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

He does look like a low level fighter swooping over a hill for a strafing run.

Great eyes,well exposed, like the angle in the frame, comp.

Can you tell us how the baiting is done? Do you shoot the mouse out with a slingshot or toss it:confused:

Cheers

Randy

[Caroline Darmo]

Beautiful shot Daniel, great wing position and fantastic underwing details.

[Antonio Lopez]

A fine shot Daniel. Very sharp, great detail and really like those piercing eyes.

[Kurt Bowman]

I like the eyes in this a lot and the detail looks great.

[Todd Frost]

Nicely done Daniel. Glad to see you are able to make some images of this gut so close to home this winter. The one near me is about 4 hours away. Nice exposure and open wings. Good sharpness. Man I wish for some snow out here. Well done.
TFS
Todd

[Jim Coda]

Perfect exposure and composition, but I do wish I could see all of the tail.

Jim Coda
http://jimcoda.wordpress.com
http://www.jimcoda.com

[denise ippolito]

Daniel, I love the stare and the framing on this one. Nice low angle!

[Chris van Rooyen]

Superb pose and sharpness, well done!

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Excellent Daniel, like the wing spread and eye contact. I would have prefered seeing the hole tail but you have mention that they fly low TFS.

[Pieter de Waal]

As well as the points mentioned above I like the feather pattern Daniel, which shows up well. Interested in the high ISO, did you need to do any NR.?

[Kiran Poonacha]

beautifully done DC, loved it.. great pose and feel here..

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks everyone!

Randy, no "tossing" of the mice here, although I'm sure they'd love the slingshot ride:icon10:. These owls are quick, so the best way is to cover the mouse with an opaque plastic lid (e.g. laundry soap jug with bottom cut out) and tie cord around the handle...go back to your camera with the other end of the cord and tug the container away, revealing the mouse inside. Give it a good tug so the container is not in the way of the photograph. A colleague had a great idea of tying the jug to a fishing rod and just reeling the container away.

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Daniel! I wondered how the baiting was done. Must be pretty exciting once you pull the cord.

[MohsenVahedipour]

Nice eye contact with Excellent sharpness & pose. very well exposed. Thanks

[D. Robert Franz]

Like everything about this...