Burrowing Owl with Raised Foot

[Juan Tolentino]

Hello guys, I'm back after a long July's vacation. I felt like it has been a long, long time since I last posted a picture here. I was dying to go out and shoot.

I captured this image yesterday in Pembroke Pines, Florida, with the Nikon D500 Handheld and AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm 1-5.6E ED VR

ISO 400
f5.6
1/1600
340mm
Manual Mode
Processed on LR and PS.
cropped <25%


All C & C's will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking

JT

[Jay Shah]

I like HA, action pose, clean BG and interesting foreground. Well done. I would have tried to clean up iris.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice image Juan, love the raised and the wide open eyes, the yellow of the iris is a bit different to the BO species here, wonder if it is a local variation(?) or a matter of WB/saturation

TFS

[gail bisson]

I like the IQ and POV. Great pose and direct gaze.
I would make this more of a vertical by taking a slice off the RHS or go for a more traditional landscape format. Feels a bit boxy to me.
The iris is often like this- I have several images of BO's with irises like this.
Gail

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the IQ and POV. Great pose and direct gaze.
I would make this more of a vertical by taking a slice off the RHS or go for a more traditional landscape format. Feels a bit boxy to me.
The iris is often like this- I have several images of BO's with irises like this.
Gail

I don't think the iris is normal, it looks like the owl might have some kind of infection as I have never seen a BO in the US with cloudy iris..the color is also muted compares to the US species.

hope this helps

[Joseph Przybyla]

I don't think the iris is normal, it looks like the owl might have some kind of infection as I have never seen a BO in the US with cloudy iris..the color is also muted compares to the US species.

hope this helps

Hi Arash, some of the Burrowing Owls in Florida have black eyes. It appears this one may have some of those traits. The thinking is that inbreeding with a genetic defect may be the cause.

[Juan Tolentino]

I found this online, same thing may be happening statewide since I have pictures with even darker eyes.
Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia floridana) are described as having distinctive yellow eyes. This characteristic is well known and photographed often. Though, many years ago, a Marco Island Burrowing Owl was noted to have “dark” eyes. It was known as the “brown eyed” owl. When querying other biologists who monitor owl populations in the state of Florida, such as Cape Coral, Eglin Air Force Base and other smaller west coasts sites,
it was not documented in those populations. Only in Brevard County was it seen a few times. It is a very unusual characteristic and atypical to characteristics of a Florida Burrowing Owl’s yellow eyes that all bird identification sources describe. The Marco Island Burrowing Owls with the “brown” eyes are not exactly brown. Using close-up photography, the “brown” coloration was proved that the iris’ were mottled and more a mosaic or “tortoise shell coloring” of yellow, brown and green colors of the iris. To date there are only two, possibly three, Marco Island Burrowing Owls documented with this unique and atypical eye color. These Burrowing Owls may carry recessive genes that produce the mosaic eye color other than bright yellow eye coloring. If two adults with these simple recessive genes mate, they could produce young with the color morph characteristic. It would be an interesting study to understand what genetically is happening with the Marco Island Burrowing Owl population.



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[Juan Tolentino]

Look at these eyes

[Juan Tolentino]

You can appreciate the different eyes' color here

[arash_hazeghi]

Good find! Had no idea it was a genetic condition