Tawny Owl

These owls are used to people in a park in Munich and there are several known trees with Tawny Owls resting in them.

The species comes in a grey and a reddish-brown (like this one) color morph.

They are the most common Owl in many parts of Europe. They feed mostly on voles but can switch to birds which means they are not hit that hard by a crop in vole numbers as other species like the Barn Owl or Long-eared Owl.

They weigh about 500-600g and sometimes prey on smaller owl species like the Boreal Owl but are also also killed by larger species like the Ural Owl (a close evolutionary relative but bigger) and the huge Eurasian Eagle Owl.

I cropped to square as this was a better fit for the owl and the stuff on the left and right didn't add anything useful to the image.

EOS 7D, EF 4/600L IS II, EF 1.4x III, tripod

Great look at this cute little guy. The color and the techs look really nice. I like that we can see some of it's foot.. Well done

Absolutely superb image with very nicely framed owl.
I have applied noise reduction and surface blur to BG. Increased contrast slightly and sharpened the rest of the part a bit more.
Let us know how it looks now.
Attachment 143336

Satish.

Square crop works well imo. I like the indirect eye contact. It's a big plus that a little bit of talon is showing in the frame too. Satish did a nice job with the NR on the bg, which I think was needed...I liked the darker look to the OP tone wise...

Lovely image with excellent details and sharpness. I'd suggest to brighten up the eye socket just a tad. Loi

Thanks for you comments.

@Satish: Thanks for the report, looks great!

Markus

What a great looking owl. It reminds me of our screen owl, but yours is quite a bit bigger. Love seeing the talon. I agree on dodging (lightening) the eye socket closest to the viewer a little bit. There is a lot of shadow there.