Burrowing Owl Chick Returning to Nest

[Loi Nguyen]

The Burrowing Owl chicks have grown so much since I first photographed them a month ago. They can fly now and practice their hunting skills often on imaginative prey like a piece of rock, a feather, but some can catch cricket already. This chick ventured away from the nest, grabbed something on the ground and flew back to the nest. I was laying on the ground on my side and trained my 500f4 on the chick knowing that it will fly back and got a couple of sharp shots.

1DX
500f4 II
1/4000
f7.1
ISO-1600
HH

Cropped to ~ 38% of FF. There is a distracting shadow of the bird below and I decided to crop it our.
Cloned out the band on one of the legs. What a shame to have it there.

Thank you for your comments on my previous images.

Loi

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely detail and light angle, an eye catching image.

[Randy Stout]

Loi:

Great light, the image quality held up well to such a large crop, neat landing pose. Like the flared primaries. Always fun to work one situation over a long period of time, to watch the chicks grow up and learn new skills.

Cheers

Randy

[William Dickson]

Well done Loi, I love the colours throughout, nice details and very pleasing to the eye.

Will

[christopher galeski]

very nice capture,nice detail,like the flight pose,I know it is what it is,but I wish the BG was all the same the green part.TFS.

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

Ripper mate! Love the detail on the bird`s face and the sweet light. Very well done.