Barred Owl at Sunrise

[Lyle Gruby]

This is one of the adults hunting at sunrise. As you can see, the sun is rising through the trees behind the bird. This was one of the first times I found the owls. I just approached slowly and the owl let me stay near it as it hunted all morning. It would fly within feet of my car to grab crawdads out of the road and ditch by the road.

Techs:
D3S
500 f4 AF-S ED IF II
700mm
1/100
ISO 2000
f/5.6

Shot from my car window on a beanbag. The bird stayed perched for a while which allowed me to take lots of shots. I experimented with how low I could go on the shutter with the beanbag and good long-lens technique. All C&C welcome. Not much done in post. I don't remember now but I sharpened the bird a little and probably did some NR. I also closed out a few spider webs that were a little too distracting in the sun's rays.

[Lyle Gruby]

And I see I misspelled the Barred in the title. I'd love if an admin could fix that for me. Also, this is a wild bird and neither baited nor called.

[gail bisson]

A fine image Lyle!
I really like the composition you chose.
The owl looks great and I like dappled sunlight in the BG and the greens and yellows in the picture.
I would clone out that thin tree to the right and above the owl in " a new york minute".
I find it really distracting and I think that if you evicted it the image would be super fine,
Gail

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image in beautiful habitat.

Regards,
Satish.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the setting, pose and composition. Well done Lyle. It must have been a great experience hanging out with this owl.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely portrait of this owl. The environment works well for me as is. I would give your owl just a tad more sharpening.

[Warren Spreng]

Great shot, I love the soulful look in the birds eyes.