Verraux's Eagle Owl

[Morkel Erasmus]

I captured a few shots of this sleepy Verraux's Eagle Owl during my recent trip to the Kalahari in late afternoon light. It was my first sighting of this lovely owl, and we were extremely lucky to get one 'relatively' out in the open.

Had to clean up a lot of dry twigs around the bird - will post the out-of-camera shot to demonstrate.

Techs:
Canon 40D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 400mm
f8.0 @ 1/1250 SS @ ISO-400
Exp +0.3

[Morkel Erasmus]

here is the out-of-camera shot...

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find and the original looks interesting, too. Too bad about the harsh light, I would try to even out shadows and highlights some more. Have you tried to lighten the eye?

[arash_hazeghi]

Beautiful shot of a sleepy owl! I would alos attempt to recover the shadows.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi mate, you certainly cleaned up around him. Good work. I like the "winking" look, and a great sighting. I like the feather detail too. Well captured.

[Daniel Belasco]

Always great to catch a new bird and you did a great job cleaning this one up.
Could be a little sharper around the face. Too bad about the light, but I know when I get a shot of a bird I don't have captured yet, I'll take whatever I can get.

[Harshad Barve]

amazing bird , lovely pose and GREAT PP job , it will take decades for me to clone this much:D
TFS

[David Fletcher]

Done really well finding this Morkel. Good cloning work. Very well done.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I kind of like the original despite the busy appearance bro! :) It shows the habitat and you could pretty much crop it to make a wooden frame around the owl. I would have left it as it was originally. Good PP though. :)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the feedback everyone! the light wasn't actually hard as it was about 5pm at this time, it was already turning golden, so don't know what gave that appearance...

Akos - I've got many shots of him on this perch so I will give your idea a twirl, I also liked the branches but felt that they could compete for the bird in this post where there's not much of an eye. I've got others with eyes more open but liked this one with one eye peeping through.