Photographed February 29th while I was actually on the lookout for waxwings...the leap year's extra day sure came in handy! This species is rather rare up here during the winter months so it was an extra special unexpected treat to come across this little fella. As usual with these owls it was the mobbing nuthatches and chickadees that alerted me to it. Never pass up a tree that has multiple stressed-out small songbirds birds within it :-)
This guy was pretty much sound asleep and only slightly opened its eyes when dogs passed by (this is at a park popular with dog owners)
Canon 7D + 100-400L @200mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/200s., f/6.3, ISO 800, flash at -0.3 FEC, handheld, small cro pto eliminate ugly branches at right, some highlights in the BG tamed via cloned and burn tools, the stem of some twigs toned down via burn tool.







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Oh, and this guy was about 8 feet up.
