Burrowing Owl Hunting

[David Salem]

I have been observing this group of owls for three seasons now and its been fun watching them interact and hunt.
The cool thing to watch is when the Japanese Beatles come into season, the big green ones that fly. For about 3 weeks they eat lots of them and I would say that they constitute about 75% of their diet.
They sit on the granite rocks and wait for them to fly overhead, then they launch their one shot areal attack. They either miss or catch it , they dont chase them all over the sky. I have seen them fly 200ft high to catch one.
This male had five Owlets to feed and he was a great provider. I have observed him catching more than a dozen in a row and never taking a bite for himself.
Doug Brown and Jim Neiger came out one day this summer and had fun watching this guy catch them. Pretty fun and challenging to capture but I still dont have a great shot of them catching one in the air. Eventually:)
Here he has just seen a Beatle, and is on his way up to get it.

1DMkIV---700mm---f6.3---ss1/3200---ISO640---HH from car@8:15am---20% crop

Thanks as always for looking and for your input. I appreciate it.

David

[christopher galeski]

nice capture,you can see the concentration in the eyes,loverly light.TFS.

[keith mitchell]

David I bet it was great watching these birds hunting and hope one day that you can get one catching a Japanese Beatles in the mean time this will do very nicely, great capture.

Keith.

[Don Railton]

Beautiful David... Love the hanging Tallons.

[Girish Prahalad]

the image very well depicts their hunting strategy as explained. IQ, pose & BG are excellent.

[Doug Brown]

Thanks for the explanation and for sharing your spot with us last summer. The concentration in the image is incredible, and the talons make it special. Hope to see you in January!

[Karl Egressy]

Very interesting story and a superb flight shot to boot, David.

[Grace Scalzo]

Again with these beautiful colors. Love everything about this frame, David. Thanks for the story as well.

[Bill Dix]

Great image, David. I never thought of Burrowing Owls acting in a flycatcher mode. Your story helps explain the upward focus of the bird. Can't wait to see the one with the beetle.

[Jim Neiger]

Sweet shot, David! I knew it was launching after a beetle the minute I saw the image. The eyes looking up at the beetle really make this image stand out.

[David Salem]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Superb, David. Love everything about this image. If you twisted my arm hard for a crit, I'd say give the bird more room to our right than the left, as the bird is directed that way. Terrific image.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi David, well timed for the take off, and you certainly captured concentration on the face of the owl. I like the symmetrical wing position, and the dangling talons, and the owl pops nicely against the BG.

Seems like this location can produce interesting shots, and endless winners.

[Marina Scarr]

What a terrific image, David, and thank you for the explanation. These owls are so difficult to get in flight and I really like how you went about this one. Those riveting eyes and hanging talons really put this one over the top.

[vishaljadhav]

Stunning image, wont change a thing i love it all the way

[gail bisson]

Terrific shot.
Love the light and the color palette.
Gail

[Loi Nguyen]

David, this is a spectacular image of a BO in flight. Fantastic light and colors. You must have been really quick to catch him in this pose. Had I seen this image earlier today, I wouldn't have bothered posting my BO image. Loi

[Greg Oakley]

Super image David - great story too!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi David I really like the image, the spread of the wings and looking up, very 'angel' like. I also like the way the the BKG splits and so you don't have a horizon like running through the head or body.

You might like to check you web settings, as the image showing an untagged profile, so as presented, IMHO it looks very saturated on screen and may not be displaying the image to it's full potential? Creating a mid tone adjustment layer through Channels and tweaking the Curves histogram really brings out more depth & detail from within the wing span & body and illustrates what you originally captured very well.

Well timed, excellent work.

TFS
Steve

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I sooo love this image. it tells so much and the pose is so cool. The eyes and stretched out legs with dangling talon adorned feet just complete it!

[David Salem]

Thanks very much everyone for the comments. I appreciate it.

Steve, not sure if you will visit this thread again but if you do can you explain the steps you take to create a mid tone adjustment layer through channels. If I dont hear from you here I may PM you. Thanks for your help and input.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi David, it's beeen a long time since I used the method within PS, but from my vague memory it's a sequence of events created by 'calculating & subtracting' (using subtraction within PS) Alpha channels where you end up with multiple layers ie four per channel, however this is a very long winded and I now have an action written by a friend of mine which allows me to pick & choose various options ie lights, super lights, , dark, mid tones etc etc, plus I can expand those too.

It's not helpful at all David and goes against what I endeavour to do on here, but it's something that with some searching within PS can be found, it's simple but complicated (if you know what I mean) and to try and write it would take some time as it would need to be accompanied with screen grabs to show how the channels are built up, you also need to name tag each layer otherwise you can easily get into a pickle.

If you want to drop me a line I can fwd the image if only for a guide.

Apologies in being/sounding rather negative on this one.

Still think it' a lovely image.

Steve

[Vivaldo Damilano]

I am very late on this one but had to comment. Fantastic pose, great colour and story David, nice work.