Burrowing Owl - low flying

[Eric Dienesch]

One of my wishes in Florida was to catch this little owl in flight. They are easy to find (Cape Coral Environment)
and it was easy to make pictures from this birds.
Still standing, preeding and so on.. but in flight ?? this species are a little bit sluggish, i think. ;)

it tooks hours over hours, day by day for me to get only this one picture in my short week in florida.
i think its not so bad, but i am very interested in your opinions.

1D X, 600mm,
1/2500 Sek., f/5.0, ISO 320, tripod in use;
and hours of sitting about 12ft away from the nest :)

Posted here in 100x667, the 1200Px Version was too big

[Randy Stout]

Eric:

I have worked the burrowing owls in Cape Coral several times, and had the same issues, they don't fly a lot!

I like the downstroke pose, angle forward in the frame, the flowers below, eye.

A bit tight in the frame, needs more space if possible to fly in.

I might consider removing the OOF stem above his left wing, because the background there is otherwise so clean.

Cheers

Randy

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like it very much great action and you patience paid off handsomely. The details in the head are outstanding. I too would make it a tad smaller in the frame but I am happy with the grasses, they look natural.
Not too sure about the sizing point, image can be up to a max 1200 wide and up to 1000 high so whichever "fits" eg, the image as presented could have been made a max size 1200 x 800.

[steve torna]

Hi Eric, I agree with Randy and Jonathan; I really like the grasses and flowers in the frame and if there is more room you could better showcase the species in it's environment. I think that it is an excellent capture! steve

[Daniel Cadieux]

Your patience has certainly paid off, like Randy I've worked those owls on a few occasions and never seen one fly (except for once in a bad spot that was not worth it). I love the flowers at the bottom. Good sharpness where it matters. I agree with a looser comp, and with removing the oof grass blade touching the top of the far wing.

[David Salem]

Your patience paid off is right. Nice flight frame but I would loosen the crop up a bit. Well done

[arash_hazeghi]

another vote for looser crop if you can. It is a nice frame and worth waiting for. Did you have to do any work on the eye BTW?


in PS use save for web to compress the file so you can post 1200 pixels.

TFS

[Bill Dix]

Well done to catch him in flight. A shot to be proud of. I especially like the flowers that show how low he was. Good POV, detail, wing position. Ditto the comments above.

[Marina Scarr]

Your patience obviously paid off on a super image here. These owls tend to be far more active after their young come out of the burrow b/c they are busy feeding them. But even then, it's note easy to capture a nice image in flight such as this. Agree on going looser.

[Eric Dienesch]

Thank you all for your statements and your usefull hints.

You mean with looser, i should leave more place in flight direction, more place on the left side of this image, am i right ?!?
Ok a little bit perhaps and i have a little bit more space left. not much, but it should works.
1200 Px.. i was only too lazy to make another small file.. in most german/european forums you have 500kb space for 1200 Px, that was the only reason. ;)
the 1000 Px Version just fits here, so i took this file here.