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.
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.
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...
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.
Tawny Owl
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