Short-eared Owl

[Jack Backs]

Taken last Sunday about 15 minutes before sunset. One piece of grass was touching the bird so I shortened it. The image before this one was a pretty nice wings down.
I preferred this one because of more of the sky was showing. I did a face transplant from that image as the face on this image was a little soft. Holding my breath that I
get a Z9 on the first go around.
D500, 500mmF4VRII, TC-14EIII
f6.3, 1/2000s, iso1000

[Arthur Morris]

Whoa! In your face. Beautiful light and bird. I would definitely eliminate the one grass right below the birds head. Why? It is the tallest and the most prominent. Good job on the face transplant!

Where?

with love, artie

[Jack Backs]

Artie,
I cloned the entire heart shaped face through the fine feathers outlining the perimeter.

[Jack Backs]

Grass removed.

[Daniel Cadieux]

It looks a lot better with that grass strand removed. Such sweet light you got here, and I love the head turn.

[dankearl]

Did you say you put a new face on the bird??? Nice Photoshop but that is not photography...

[Jack Backs]

Hmmmmm.....Removing grass and branches isn't photography, replacing an eye with a nictitating membrane isn't photography, applying Gaussian filters to backgrounds isn't photography. I thought this was more of a "Birds as Art" forum than a photo contest.
I personally don't view using this birds face from an image one tenth of a second earlier for sharpness sake as that egregious and I seriously doubt anyone would have noticed if I hadn't said anything. I wouldn't have any problem printing this out and calling it a "photograph".

[Brian Sump]

Jack, a very attractive frame sir.

The lighting (and angle), pose and background colors/transition are just nailed. The composition is very pleasing.

I am good with the grasses personally, however I think a slight (and selective) burning could help make a couple of them slightly less prominent.

There is still a slight bit of motion blur, esp on the face, but man you did a nice job with the transplant. FWIW, regardless of what editing you do, my opinion is if you share it then there's merit..... plus that rhymed ;-)

TFS!