Burrowing Owl

[Erich Stevens]

I photographed a different burrow yesterday. The entrance was overgrown with weeds and grass, making a clear shot of the owls impossible. Fortunately, one of them flew to a nearby tree to get a better look at me, so I was able to get his entire body. As a bonus I came away with a unique burrowing owl image, as they're usually photographed on the ground or perched on a fence post.

I left the 2x at home this time, so all my images were nice and sharp right out of the camera. I did do an overall sharpening just for good measure, plus a selective sharpening on the eyes and face. I also burned in a few BG highlights and the branch, making it look wet almost, which I like. I will probably get points taken off for the tip of his tail being obstructed by the branch.

Nikon D80, 300mm f/2.8, ISO 200, f/8, 1/200, fill flash @ 1/4 power, tripod.
Taken at about 4:00 PM under overcast skies. Shot horizontal, cropped vertical.

[Brian Barcelos]

O.K. Erich, I'll take some points for the missing tale but never the less this is a great image. Love the stare and those long legs. BG is wonderful and sharpness is good. Perch is a little big but I like all the textures on the bark. Congrats

Brian

[Fabs Forns]

Yes, the missing tail hurts a bit, but the rest in nicely composed. It looked very light to me, so I duplicated the layer, and used Multiply as blending mode, with a 45% opacity. Hope you like it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the unusual perch, BG and eye contact. I like the repost and don't mind the obstructed tail.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

what I like about this image is that we can see its feet, everything IMO is excellent.

[Charlie VanTassel]

I like the wide awake, stretched out pose. The bump in contrast in Fabs' repost looks good to me too.

[Dr.Pranay Rao Juvvadi]

I like the wide awake, stretched out pose. The bump in contrast in Fabs' repost looks good to me too.

Ditto Charlie.

[Paul Kusmin]

I like the original a little bit more as it seems truer to their actual colouration.
Pose and composition are good although the missing tail hurts a bit (as has been already mentioned).

[Bryan Hix]

Good shot, tail mentioned. I like what Fabs did for the re-post.

[Harshad Barve]

Fantastic image , no problems with tail , Fab's repost is popping
TFS

[Kiran Poonacha]

Lovely one, the eye contact and pose looks great, Fabs repost sure adds a bit, congrats....

[Erich Stevens]

Thanks everyone for your valuable comments, and thank you Fabs for your repost. My original was definitely on the light side. Here is my own repost, which is probably somewhere between the two. I also clipped a few tail feathers, hee hee. Thanks again, everyone!

[Daniel Belasco]

Beautiful Erich.
I like your repost, but I'd go ahead and clone the 4 big whitish spots--2 on top, one on each side eye level. Just clone in the nice green bg.
Your repost looks sharper than the original. Maybe it's an increase in contrast.