Bottoms Up and Down The Hatch

[Jim Fenton]

Far from perfect, but kinda neat I thought.

Very dismal day with sporadic rain and out of no place I see a snowy owl come gliding down the hillside and dive head first into a phragmities stand in the salt marsh...and completely disappear.

As I walked down the road, I could hear rustling among the brown of the winter reeds and moving slowly, out waddles the snowy owl.

At first it didn't see me until it looked up just as it cleared the edge of the reeds....when it realized I was looking, it tipped the vole up in the air and swallowed it hole. I ended up with a creating an image with a snowy owl head and a vole butt all at the same time :)

One of those dreary and noisy images that's just too cool for me to chuck it.

Nikon D300, 500VR, ISO 800, f7.1, 1/60, CW metering, +.3EV

Baited by Mother Nature.

[Julie Brown]

Jim, this is a cool image. Thanks for the story behind it.:)
So, is that mud on its mouth, or part of the vole?:cool:

[Jim Fenton]

That's the back side of the vole...the last part of it which saw the light of day.

[Don Anderson]

Nice story. very nice shot of a wet dirty snowy owl. :D

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find, setting and action captured. I might try to lighten the chest a bit.

[Deborah Hanson]

For a 'dreary and noisy' image (as you put it) - it is a great capture. I would think with noise reduction and a slight blur of the background it would be a really nice image. The eyes are sharp (better than mine that are taken under ok conditions) and draw the viewer into the photo.
The vole in the mouth makes me think of sci fi movies:D.

Really enjoyed the photograph. Thanks for posting.

Deb

[Alfred Forns]

Jim would also lighten the vole, can't even see what it is ... fill flash would have made it a fine image.

[Randy Stout]

Jim:

A very effective image, despite the tech. concerns you expressed. Nice that there was enough of a clearing to get a clean shot of the bird. I suspect part of the reason the chest is dark is mud.

Def. would keep it. It works.

Randy

[david cramer]

It's certainly a keeper, Jim, as it portrays behavior beautifully. I think the image could be lightened some.

[Jim Fenton]

Great Feedback and I'll give it a whirl this weekend as I have a couple of lectures I volunteered for to get out of the way.