Baby Eastern Screech-Owl.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This cute little fella, on its first full day out of the nest, chose a rather beautiful setting to spend it on! This was early morning, when the sun shone for just a wee for a few minutes before clouds came over...but by that time the little owlet was fast asleep for the day. I missed a second baby atop this one by a few minutes - that one was busy climbing up this tree at the time this was created.

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/320s., f/5.6, ISO 3200, FF, natural light, handheld, softened some of the shadows, and a couple of extraneous twigs cleaned up from the edges.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

That is one cute little puff ball. Great to catch him wedged in the crotch of the tree like that, and with his eyes open! Nice detail in the tree trunks, soft background, and the crop is helped by his slight up gaze .

Sweet.

Randy

[Joseph Przybyla]

Lovely image, Dan, a little fluff ball. Love the big eyes and the sad look. When I opened the thread I didn't see the full length of the image. What I had on the screen was about a 4x5 you might try that with the longest dimension horizontal. Thank you for sharing.

[Mike Poole]

It all came together nicely here Dan, light, bird, eyes, and a great view with the tree doing the framing. I would take a bit off the top if it were mine (I wish!)

Mike

[Arthur Morris]

Kill me why don't you? Superb as expected. I love the o-o-f buds especially the one on the right frame-edge.

with love, artie

[Bill Dix]

Cute and lovely frame. Every time I see a Screech Owl he has his eyes closed. Interesting comp. I could imagine other options, but I rather like the extreme vertical.

[dankearl]

I think a nice Instagram square crop would look good but you probably don't have the pixels....

[John Mack]

Getting your money's worth out of these owls. The placement of the owl in the frame is right on. The lichen on the tree is nice as well.

[Brian Sump]

Daniel, a real treat. TFS!

[Paul Burdett]

Love it...wouldn't change a thing.

[arash_hazeghi]

another killer frame of this cute owl. I like your composition but I wonder how it would look like losing the empty space on the left if IQ holds.

TFS wish we had these owls here

[Jim Crosswell]

Beautiful image Daniel! I like the IQ, open eyes, framing of the owl by the tree is awesome. I could see a little off the top but of course that is personal preference.

[Jonathan Ashton]

What a super moment, I like the composition, colours etc loook beautiful, an occasion I am sure you will remember for years to come.

[Jan van Holten]

Well done this cutie.