Breakfast with Barred Owls

[Lyle Gruby]

This is a shot of a different family than I posted earlier. They share the same hunting ground and also eat tons of crawfish. This owlet has the biggest personality of any I have seen so far--it will bite both its parent and its sibling on their wings and butts when it hasn't gotten food in a while, it will even fully lie down on its stomach on a branch while aggressively calling for food, and yesterday I saw it animatedly hopping along beside a squirrel as if trying to figure out what it was. The morning this shot was taken, this owlet had chosen this nice, open perch while its sibling was back in the woods a little ways. I saw the adult ahead hunting, so I crossed my fingers this owlet would be fed first and crossed them even tighter hoping the adult would actually feed it on this branch. The owls have a thing about eating in the open or near me--they almost always fly back into the woods to eat and a few minutes later they will fly back out to a perch right beside me. So, it's rare for me to get to see them handle their food, I guess they know I love crawfish as much as them! So, to wrap up a long story, the adult did exactly what I'd hoped for, though the owlet turned its back to me while actually eating the crawfish. The only downside is the lack of light, luckily I had already fine-tuned my exposure and did some careful post-processing. Owls are wild, neither baited not called.



Techs:
D3s
500mm AF-S II f4
1/500
f/4
ISO 5000

Slight crop for comp. (mainly to get rid of a little bit of the vegetation on the left), slightly sharpened the birds and perch, reduced noise to the BG. All C&C welcome.

[Marina Scarr]

There's a lot to like here with the feeding behavior and that killer green BG. I think you could improve the image even more. How much of a crop is this? I would like to see this cropped from the bottom up to the bottom of the first piece of vegetation, a slight bit from the left and then more from the right. Then I'd like to see both birds sharpened a little more, especially their heads. Love the way they are both looking right at you. Terrific capture!

[gail bisson]

I would kill for a shot like this!
I would tighten the crop all around to really draw the eye in to the owls.
Image seems a bit cool to me and I might warm it up slightly.
Well done on a great behavior shot!
Gail

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

If possible, I'd crop more from the right, closer to the end of their perch.
Excellent behaviour and well executed image.
TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the two handsome owls with nice display of the environment and the prey. I'm with Marina that the details look a bit coarse and lacking which reduces the impact of this otherwise great image. Perhaps cropping a bit tighter will help with this

TFS