Love's in the Air

[Loi Nguyen]

A sweet tender moment of a Burrowing Owl mating pair. He is super sweet to her and grooms her often, but this is one of the rarer moments when she seems to reciprocate.

1Dx
500f4 II
1/3200
f8
ISO-3200
Tripod lying flat on ground

I was careful this morning and managed to avoid my own shadow casting on the owls!

Thank you for commenting on my previous owl image.

Loi

[Ian Wilson]

Very sweet indeed. I love the coy look at the camera. The image quality is good and as the feet are missing, I would be tempted to go for a much tighter head-and-shoulders crop. Regards, Ian

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Loi, I love the interaction but I feel the image would have been much stronger with owls showing their cute eyes a bit more. the OOF rock in the FG is a bit distracting should be easy to remove

TFS

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Bummer 'bout that rock too for me, but as mentioned, retouching it should be an easy task.

Lovely interaction in beautiful light and great green BG.

TFS Loi.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice interaction and cuteness captured, Loi.

[MiroslavMaric]

Sweet pose, like the composition with 2 birds and 2 eyes only! As mentioned retouching of the rock would be a plus.

Cheers,
Miro

[gail bisson]

I am a bit late to the party but Arash and Akos comments echo my sentiments perfectly.
The light is just beautiful.
I wonder if you could have raised your tripod about 8 inches higher to clear the rocks to give a view of the feet?
Gail

[Loi Nguyen]

I am a bit late to the party but Arash and Akos comments echo my sentiments perfectly.
The light is just beautiful.
I wonder if you could have raised your tripod about 8 inches higher to clear the rocks to give a view of the feet?
Gail

Thank you all for the helpful comments. Why didn't I think of raising the tripod a little more? Honestly, I was trying to make myself low to the ground so that I do not impose on them. The fact that they went about their business ignoring me was exactly what I was hoping for. I just didn't see the missing feet! Raising the tripod would be a good option, but I will have to think how to do that without sitting up :)

Loi

[dennis greenwood]

A magic moment to witness

[Shawn Zierman]

Ahhhh, that's really sweet! Pivotal moment, well photographed. I see a nice square crop presentation here as well. Great light quality.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hi Loi!

I am enjoying this - sweet light and pose from the pair, love the closeness and grooming behaviour captured. I would perhaps go even tighter with the crop to get closer for an even more intimate look.

I truly appreciate the efforts you made not to disturb the subjects, you might have missed out on a couple of great frames while doing so but there's more satisfaction in knowing you did not interfere.

Indeed pity about the legs not being visible, but in all the excitement one does not always think of everything... we learn as we go and it is good to have friends on BPN who point out those issues:)

I forgot to mention the BG here - I think it is stunning. The rock in the FG not quite so easy to retouch IMO.

I hope you have more on those little guys, very special sighting Loi, and some nice PP work too

Warmest regards,

[David Salem]

Nice intimate frame Loi. I really like the poses and the nice BG colors. The rock in an easy fix. Well done.