My Habitat - Our largest owl with his pink eye-lids

[Richard Flack]

My habitat!

Besides seeing the awesome, pacific golden plover for the first time, this sighting of a verreaux’s eagle owl was the highlight of our trip to Borakalalo National Park on Saturday. I still don’t know how Skye spotted it!

I am not normally a fan of busy backgrounds in photographs, but this one works for me. It not only reveals this beautiful owl in his natural environment but also displays the cool, gnarly trees typical of the park (which you always think should have owls in them but very rarely are able to prove this theory correct :)).
The verreaux’s eagle owl is the largest owl our region has to offer and is unique not only because of its size but also for its full of character, pink eyelids, wavy, grey plumage and short ear tufts. It is described by Sasol Birds of Southern Africa as being an “uncommon to locally common resident in broadleafed woodland, savanna, thornveld and riverine forest; also desert riverbeds with large trees”.

I look forward to your comments...

Location: Borakalalo National Park, North West Province
Date taken: 25 October 2014
Photo details:
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/100
F stop 5.6
Exposure bias 0
Sharpened for web

[arash_hazeghi]

great pose, good exposure. wish there were some light on the eyes. BG was difficult to work with here

TFS and for the info.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Congrats on this awesome sighting. I have never seen one before! Great looking bird and I don't mind the habitat. Well done. TFS.

[David Salem]

What a beautiful owl Richard and I'm glad you had the chance to see it and capture this nice frame. The techs look great and the details look good too. Yes I wish there was a bit more light, and that the BG was a little less busy, but the overall capture is a keeper in my book. Well done

[William Dickson]

Lovely bird Richard, and looking good in its natural habitat. Thanks for sharing this

[Ian Wilson]

A wonderful achievement to get such a clear view of this giant owl. Good work in difficult lighting and unfavourable high angle. Well done. Regards, Ian

[Marina Scarr]

Stunning owl, and what unique eyelids! You did well with what you were working with. I am with Arash on wishing there were more light in the eyes. You might wish to try a little work on the eyes. It would really help to make the image pop a little and make your owl look a bit more vibrant.

[Grace Scalzo]

What a find! You did extremely well to get such a difficult image in camera. My feeling is that you have more tweaks available through your processing that you have employed. As much as square comps seem to be frowned on, I might consider it here. By coming in from the right, you would eliminate the out of focus branches and reduce the effect of the heavy one on top. I might bring up the shadows of the branch on top, again, to lighten its effect on the image. Yes to exploring the eyes and seeing if you can't get more life into them. And lastly, I've been playing with things like selecting the background and reducing the exposure on it (Slightly!) just to allow the subject a bit more prominence, and also a very slight vignette might work here. All these are just ideas, things that I would experiment with in PS and filters, if this fine frame was in my files. Not being an expert in processing, I just try stuff and see what works and go from there. Hope that this helps.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Pretty cool owl! Agree about the eyes - a bit of work there would be great. I actually like the messy tangles in the BG a lot more than I though I would. I just wish the blown highlights were blue sky instead. Very nice nonetheless.

[Richard Flack]

Thanks so much for the comments and the advice. I really appreciate it! I will post another option soon. All the best. Rich

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Rich, great sighting, and what awesome Owls they are. Love the raised ear tuffs, and their pink eyelids have always fascinated me. In Africa, Im afraid most Owl sightings are going to have a busy BG.

[Joseph Przybyla]

A beautiful bird I never knew existed. Sure there are things one would wish different in the image but sometimes you have to shoot them where you find them, especially if they are rarely sighted. A image I would love to have captured. Thank you for sharing.