Tag: asio flammeus

Short-eared Owls In Flight

These three images are of a mated pair of Short-eared Owls taken two years ago at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Montana.    1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This is the male delivering a vole to his family.  As you can see from my techs I had to max out my settings (especially on the last two images) to try to get enough shutter speed for flight shots.  Each of these photos was taken on different mornings but the light was consistently a challenge while we were there.       1/800, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  This is the elusive female.  I got very few shots of her because she spent most of the time on the nest with her two chicks and I rarely saw her fly.      1/800, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Another look at the male. There’s a good reason for the timing of this post – we’re at Red Rock right now (I prepared this post before leaving and post-dated publication) and anticipation of this trip had me thinking about these wonderful owls again.  We’d have to be pretty lucky to find cooperative owls again but if not there should be plenty of other birds to work with.  The biggest challenge on this trip is likely to be light.  Red Rocks is right on the continental divide and early summer weather up there is volatile and often down-right scary – especially when you’re pulling a camping trailer over 30 miles of dirt roads!  These trips are…

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Short-eared Owl Hunting From A Post

We were driving out of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on our way home when we spotted this Short-eared Owl perched on a large double post at the top of a long, grinding hill.  I was pulling the camping trailer so we made a lot of racket and raised a huge cloud of dust on the gravel road so I figured there was no chance this bird would let that big noisy rig close enough for decent shots.  But it did – though just barely.    1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Here it was trying to decide if we were enough of a potential threat to fly off but soon it relaxed and seemed to accept our presence.       1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Almost immediately the owl began to scour the slope to the right for potential prey.      1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  When it spotted something it took off…       1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  gained speed as it descended down the relatively steep slope…       1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  and this is the last decent shot I got as it got close to the grasses and I lost focus on the bird.       1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  But the owl obviously liked that post as a hunting platform and almost immediately returned to it (though these last shots are from an earlier sequence).   It very quickly spotted what was probably…

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Short-eared Owl Delivering Food To The Nest

In previous posts (here, here and here) about these Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge I’ve shown and described snippets of the fascinating behaviors I observed when this male would deliver voles to the female and two youngsters at the nest.  But it struck me that I’ve never put the whole process together in sequence so the behaviors could be fully appreciated so that’s what I’ll attempt to do here.   Most of the images will be different from those in the previous posts.     1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The male was a tireless and highly skilled hunter and I never saw him with any prey other than voles.  When successful he would always return to the vicinity of the nest and land momentarily on one of two favorite perches – the dark sagebrush at lower right in the above photo or a metal post a few feet from the sagebrush.  Here he’s coming in for a landing on the sagebrush with vole in talons and glances up at me to make sure all is safe.  I really like the intense direct eye contact in the shot.       1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Now he’s focused on the sagebrush in order to make a successful landing.       1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This time he stayed perched for less than five seconds and didn’t even pull his wings in against his body – he just kept them out or up while he seemed to contemplate his next…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #17 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With A Vole In Its Beak

This is another image from my time with the Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  This male was kept very busy hunting voles and feeding his mate and youngsters at the nest.   Typically I would see him hunting far off, dive for a vole, and if he was successful he’d occasionally eat the vole himself but most often he would return with it to a favorite perch in the vicinity of the nest – and without exception he would always carry the vole in his talons before he got to the perch (and always his left talon, but I covered that topic in another post).     1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However, just before (or just after) he took off from the perch to deliver the meal to his family he would always transfer the vole from his talons to his beak.  I have a theory as to why he did so.  The nest was on the ground at the base of a sagebrush.  Whenever the male landed at the entrance to the nest with the vole the female would rush out and very aggressively grab the vole.  And I DO mean aggressively!  If I’d been him I’d have been afraid to get that close to her with food.  So the male would approach the nest very gingerly with the vole in his beak and drop it in front of him and quickly retreat as she rushed out.  I suspect it was easier for him to avoid a confrontation with her if he could quickly drop…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #6 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With Prey

Sometimes conditions are marginal at best for avian photography and that often seems to be the case for me when I’m presented with an otherwise wonderful opportunity.  Then the decision must be made –  go ahead and shoot anyway, knowing it’s likely that I won’t get any keepers or just pack it in and watch and enjoy the birds?      1/640, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, noise reduction to background   Such was the case with this Short-eared Owl at Montana’s rugged and remote Centennial Valley.  It was an overcast day and there generally wasn’t enough light for photographing birds in flight but this male was regularly delivering voles to his family and would occasionally fly right by me as he did so.  I could have removed my teleconverter to get a little more shutter speed but then the owl would be quite small in the frame so I just decided to fire away and hope for the best.  Even at ISO 800 (the absolute limit for my 7D without getting too much noise) I was often getting shutter speeds of 1/500 or slower at f/5.6 – just not fast enough to get birds in flight sharp. I got lucky with this shot.  As the owl was coming in, the clouds behind me opened up slightly to allow a little more light on the bird and a shutter speed of 1/640 – just enough to get good sharpness on a relatively large and slow flying bird if your focus is well locked on to the subject.  The still shaded Centennial Mountains provided…

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Raptors Mobbing Raptors

Mobbing is an antipredator behavior where animals mob a predator by cooperatively attacking or harassing it.  This behavior is especially common in birds during nesting and rearing of young.  Typically, it will be a flock of  passerines like Red-winged Blackbirds mobbing a raptor or perhaps a magpie or any other bird they consider to be a threat to their nest or young.    In mid-June of this year while Mia and I were on another one of our camping/photo forays to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge we witnessed a somewhat unusual display of mobbing – raptors mobbing raptors.  We had just returned to our camping trailer when Mia noticed this sub-adult Bald Eagle resting on a muskrat mound almost a quarter-mile away across Lower Red Rock Lake – too far away for quality photos (we had marginal light too) but we simply can’t resist training our lenses on a situation like this just to see if something interesting might happen.  And this time it did.     Canon 7D, 1/800, f/6.3, ISO 500 ev +1.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The eagle seemed to be minding its own business and just hanging out for a while on the mound.      Canon 7D, 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 500 ev +1.33, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc But soon a Short-eared Owl (a male I believe) appeared on the scene and he was not happy with the presence of the eagle.  My presumption is that the owl had a nest in the area and it felt the eagle threatened the nest or young.      Canon 7D, 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 800 ev +1.00,…

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Short-eared Owls Defending Their Nest Against Predators

Recent reports from others indicate that bird activity on Antelope Island is slowing down now and our experience out there recently would agree with that assessment so yesterday when Mia and I were trying to decide where to go shooting birds we were a little hesitant about another trip to the island.  But even with things slowing down we almost never fail to find something interesting to photograph and yesterday was certainly no exception!   Canon 7D, 1/800, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV 0, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Soon after arriving on the island we noticed a pair of Short-eared Owls, obviously mated based on their behavior.     Canon 7D, 1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 500, EV 0, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This owl was carrying a vole and we immediately suspected that the pair had a nest in the vicinity, which turned out to be true.  It was quite a distance from the road and buried in vegetation but we could tell its location by watching this owl deliver food to the nest site – either to the mate or to both the mate and chicks.  We watched and photographed the birds for a while but when things slowed down we went further down the island.     Canon 7D, 1/1600, f/8, ISO 640, EV + .67, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc On our return to the area of the nest we immediately saw a quickly developing drama.  A young coyote had apparently just crossed the road and was approaching the nest area and the owls were in…

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Agonistic (fighting) Behavior in Male Short-eared Owls

I recently returned from one of my favorite places in the world – Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  Last year I was able to photograph nesting Short-eared Owls carrying voles to their young but this year, because of the very cold spring, nesting hadn’t even begun.  Instead the owls were competing for territory and mates and pairing up.   On one morning I was incredibly lucky to find two males trying to impress a female with their aerial prowess and fighting skills.  They were so engrossed in their activities that they pretty much ignored me. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Often one male would be on the ground when the other male would swoop in on him.  Here the foreground bird has just lifted off to meet his adversary. Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc As was often the case the birds didn’t make actual contact.  In researching this behavior I’ve learned that they will sometimes lock talons and fall to the ground before releasing.  I suspect that as they rush toward each other they look for a weakness in defense – if they spot one in the other birds defensive body position they would likely make aggressive contact.   Canon 7D, 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Most of the time both birds stayed on the ground or flew very low but occasionally one of the owls would fly several hundred feet up and circle over the other male (and the female, who was…

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Short-eared Owl in the Fog

My friend Mia and I had such a great time in June with the Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana that we decided to return in September.  Getting close to them was more difficult this time because they weren’t nesting and feeding young.  However, one morning we got lucky.    A cooperative Short-eared Owl  When we awoke we were socked in with heavy fog.  As it slowly began to clear we went looking for birds and found this owl perched in the middle of the road.  As we approached, it flew a short distance to this post and then allowed us to get very close.  We’re sure this is the same female that we had photographed in June on the same territory.       Short-eared Owl female looking for voles She was very accepting of our presence and within a few minutes was looking for voles below her post perch.  We were right at the edge of the fog and as it would swirl around us, alternately getting thicker and then clearing a bit, we knew that some of our images would show the effect of the fog more than others.  The soft feathers of owls don’t give up their fine detail to photographers easily, even in the best of conditions.  But we simply couldn’t pass up this opportunity with this beautiful female and we still got some shots we like very much.      Short-eared Owl checking us out Occasionally her attention would be diverted from the potential prey in the…

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