Eastern Screech Owl.

[Karl Egressy]

I have unfortunately never seen this family in the cavity.
By the time I got to know about them, the owlets were fledged (all five of them).
I was late by one day only which bothered me a bit, as it was my fault,
but then with the help of some nice people we located them in the little forest nearby.
(they did)
Thanks for coming.


Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Manual Exposure
Tv 1/320
Av 5.6
ISO 1600
EF500mm f/4L IS USM

[Bob Malbon]

WOW those eyes! Something drawing my eyes to the left tuft - did you clone out something in that area?

[Karl Egressy]

WOW those eyes! Something drawing my eyes to the left tuft - did you clone out something in that area?

Hi Bob,

I just remembered.
I cloned out a skinny branch going through in front of the bird.
You might talk about that and not the funny spot on the tree trunk.
The tree trunk has a funny spot as well that I did not clone out is it seems natural.

[gail bisson]

Hi Karl,
Nice find!I would love to see one in real life.
I see a magenta cast and I feel the bird is over sharpened.
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Nice and sharp on the owl, and great stare. Good job on the cloning. The tip of the bird's left ear seems to be missing - maybe that's where you cloned the stick, or its just bent over. In any case, nice capture.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice and sharp on the owl, and great stare. Good job on the cloning. The tip of the bird's left ear seems to be missing - maybe that's where you cloned the stick, or its just bent over. In any case, nice capture.

Thanks Bill.

Here is the jpeg version of the original. ( I shoot RAW+jepeg)

[Karl Egressy]

Hi Karl,
Nice find!I would love to see one in real life.
I see a magenta cast and I feel the bird is over sharpened.
Gail

Thanks Gail.

I actually started using more sharpening for the sake of BPN members.
Someone will always find it too sharp or not sharp enough, or too dark or too bright.
I appriceate all the comments and try to learn from them but I'll never be able to please everybody all the time, so I just try to have fun.
Do you remeber the hat story?

[Bill Dix]

Karl, I see what you mean. The tip of his ear must be folded down, and there's a spot on the tree right behind where I expected to see the ear tip.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I was drawn to the funny spot on the tree that was normal. Soo Now I will stop looking there :) I love the twinkle in the eyes. That's a cool perch he decided to sit on as well and I like your choice of crop

[Daniel Cadieux]

The image on pane #6 answers a question I had, which was: could you have moved left to minimize the perch obstructing the owl? (no!) You did a commendable job removing that stick in post. Great looking bird...pity you were a day late for the fledglings but this is a beautiful consolation prize.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Karl, great clone job. would not have guessed. loved the details. Good call on f-stop to blur that trunk. loved it a lot.

[Ofer Levy]

Nice image. The branch is a bit dominant but still nice.

[rajojomanik]

Glad you found them Karl.

Just like you I was going to see it yesterday but was warned by Mike V that the Owlets have flegled so I didn't bother to make the long commute. Oh well, maybe next year.

[arash_hazeghi]

Very nice owl! good processing too :)

[Colin Knight]

Sweet job with that cloning! =) Great habitat. I love how the bird is looking away. It's different, refreshing. The good news is they often reuse their nesting sites....so watch out for next time.