Ninja Owl

Captured this last spring at my Burrowing Owl spot. The owl is hunting crickets and small insects that wander around the rocks. Caught this funny shot in mid pounce and named it "Ninja Owl" as soon as I looked at in the field on the cameras LCD.

1DMKIV---700mm---f6.3---ss1/3200---ISO640---car as blind w/BLUBB@ 8:30am---15% crop

Thanks as always for looking and for your input

David

This is Superb David! The intense gaze, the talons and the pose are fantastic! I pity his poor prey, must be difficult to escape this Ninja Warrior!!!! Well done.

David:
This is absolutely superb jumping?? pose you have captured.
Love the pose with nice HA,open beak, intense stare,sharp talons,nice lights,colors and nice background.
I like the composition too.You have nice opportunity to try different compositions including vertical too.
Bird can take some more sharpening.

Regards,
Satish.

Woot !!!....love it !!! The angle of bird and rock work perfectly, loving the concentration ion the birds face/eye....not a single thing I would change David, top shelf photography

Unbelievable capture. The look on his face and the position of his feet are perfect.

It is an entertaining image for sure!! Neat perch for this species (although as posted I would not sharpen it). Good BG,d a funny pose. I wish for better light on the face but I appreciate it was likely very nice when it was perched and that this was likely an unexpected instance...one to keep!! A bit more sharpening to the subject would not hurt.

David, this is one lovely image of a beautiful bird in great action. It shows both the owl and the environment very well. Love the owl pose of course, but the clean background, nice colors contrast of the ground and the sky, and the rock as perch, makes the image superb.

So beautiful.Have been very clever in naming

Super shot great timing. I like the talons and the intent stare, I would suggest a little more sharpening especially in the head area.

Sorry, forgot to add sharpening for the web. Ya Daniel, I wish there was a bit more light on its face, but Im happy that it was sharp. I was shooting portraits in single shot, and got lucky he jumped in the same DOF.. Thanks for the comments everyone.

Hi David, very well timed, and love the extended right leg. The owl pops so well from the distant BG, and I would like to see this in a vertical version, if you have more room below. I do like it as presented too. :w3

Great timing David and a super capture, repost is awesome

A nice funny one! Very unique indeed. It's never easy to photograph something so spontaneous. These owls do move like Ninjas. Before looking at the repost, I thought the right talon was sharper than the head.

Rarely seen pose captured very well David. The repost looks better. The more I look at the image the more I like it. Just amazing I would say.

I like the unique pose, intense focus, colours and composition. Repost looks better. Excellent image David!

The repost is very nice, I was thinking that it looked a tad soft until I saw repost.
Cool image, you are lucky to get such a nice close look.

Wonderful work! Pity the poor cricket that ends up in those talons.

you get bonus points for a great title!
the pose is priceless and unusual.

I might sharpen it a bit more,
Gail
Oops, just saw your repost.Looks good.
I try not to look at any comments before I make my own comments so
I am not biased (so missed the repost)

Thanks everyone for the Comments.

David:
Repost is marvelous.

Regards,
Satish.