"DRONE" alert

So Gail B. and I are hangin out with a family of burrowing owls, y'know enjoying life, every second! We all know the effort and the great satisfaction when you are at the "right place at the right time" until... Nirvana is broken by a monotonous hum. Lawnmower, nope, duuuhh Rone. The other owls dove into their burrow, and these three stood frozen for a few more seconds, gazing up at the "predator". My heart sunk for the fright they all showed and I needed to tame my protective instinct to smash the stupid whiny remote drone that kept buzzing above our heads. Earlier in the day we both experienced a pick up truck with an idiot who saw us glued to our cameras and decided to pound his fist on the outside of his door to disturb the owls and Gail and I. Lastly, i remember the woman who was walking her dog and navigated to literally three feet in front of us while Fifi took care of her business... Anyway, sorry for the rant but here are the burrowing owls, wondering what predator they were going to encounter.

1 Dx
840mm
iso 800
f 7.1
1/3200

Well the pose on the birds is neat and i like the low angle. Some more room below would be nice. I watched a guy lose a drone in the big lake up an Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge one morning. He flew it out and flushed a huge flock of ducks and various other birds. I was watching the drone through binoculars and it just dropped right out of the sky into the water. It was pretty satisfying.

This is really nice Ann!
I love the upward gaze and the IQ and the little flowers on the right of the frame.
Yes to a bit more room on the bottom and I would increase exposure by about 1/3 of a stop.
I had forgotten all about the lady letting her dog poop so close to me!You had me laughing this morning!
I was too busy giving the drone the finger to see this moment!!:bg3:
Very nice frame,
Gail

Lovely image, Ann. Judging from the size of the pupils the light must have been bright, you handled it well in post processing. The background colors compliment the owls nicely. Sharp. exposure looks spot on. Thank you for sharing.

Now that being said, I am trying to picture the owls, a drone above them and Gail B. giving it the middle finger salute. Now that I would love to have captured with my camera.

Very difficult to beat the cuteness factor in this photo. The story behind it makes it even better. I agree with John that a little more room below would be nice and also with Gail that you can lift the exposure a bit as well. I viewed this image on my phone and on my 5k imac. On the phone the sharpness looks very good on the middle bird. However the image quality does not look as good on the imac. This is one of those images that when viewed on different screens looks very different. The other thing is, and I know that I am being super picky, but when you have multiple birds in the frame like this I think it really helps to have them all in focus. Here the back bird is too blurry for my liking. I either would have preferred it sharp or much farther back and much more blurry. Where it is now to me is just a little distracting. Not sure if it would have worked but your ISO was low. May have been worth it to bump up the ISO quite a bit and try and get a higher fstop and more depth of field. Those little things make a big difference in final presentation and are the things that you only get a chance to get right in the field. Keeping those little things in mind when in the field will push all of us to make better photos.

Hi Ann, well timed to have all three looking up at the drone. I really like the detail and sharpness on the middle Owl, and DOF understandable as you were probably fairly close. I do like how the colours of the BG complement the Owls, and your central placement works well.

What a great looking picture. Personally I would have wished for the OOF bird not being there.. But, it kinda works here, with the, which looks like dried flowers, next to it. Very pleasing to the eye, with great colours throughout. I hate drones..

Will

Thanks everyone. I do not have any more room below and this is full frame. I was close and with 840mm so i doubt i would have got more focus w a higher fstop/iso... I'm not a fan of oof birds but thought this was somewhat desirable given the proximity and same stare they all shared. i guess we are not in the drone fan club!

Ditto most everything above especially cute and a bit dark and more room below. Drones disturb both wildlife and humans. Ask me about what I saw in Africa ...

with love, artie