Being this close to a wild owl inspired in me a feeling of deep and solemn respect.
1/8000, f/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
I photographed this Short-eared Owl 12 days ago as it hunted voles from a fence post next to a paved, rural road. It had apparently become quite acclimated to traffic because it didn’t even flinch when the occasional vehicle came by. Normally I wouldn’t even attempt to get this close to a wild owl but in order to get past it I had no choice. As I did so I stuck my lens out the window and fired off a few shots. I had no opportunity to remove my teleconverter or adjust camera settings (thus the crazy-high shutter speed) but my exposure was right and I was able to get excellent detail on the face.
I had no time to appreciate that detail in the field through my lens but I become transfixed by the intimacy when I look at the image on my screen. I enjoy the details of the facial disc, the rictal bristles wrapping around the front of the beak and of course those riveting bright yellow eyes deeply set in the blacks of the eye orbits. And I was happy to see that this bird apparently has healthy eyes. A significant number of owls I photograph have “blown” eyes – apparent injuries often caused by struggles with prey or collisions with vehicles.
Nature is just about the only thing that inspires reverence in me these days and I definitely had that feeling with this owl. These rare experiences are one of the many reasons I photograph birds.
Ron
Notes:
- I wasn’t as close to this owl as it might appear. Keep in mind that I’m shooting at an effective 1120 mm and this photo was cropped to 25.5% of the original image.
- I know I’ve been posting a lot of Short-eared Owl photos recently but stormy weather is keeping me home-bound so I haven’t been able to get many new images. Hopefully that’ll change very soon.
I was holding the pipe in a sweat one time, and a young Lakota friend (who has since died of cancer) sitting opposite me, later told me he could see through thei and into my heart and in that moment knew we would be friends forever. Something similar happens when I looked into and lock gazes with many of the animals I’ve known. It feels like something inside turns over…hard to explain, but part of it is an incredibly strong sense of connection and respect. It’s powerful.
That should read “through the pipe and into my heart”. I have a feeling something like this has happened to you more than once….
Yes, it has, Patty – more often with critters than with people…
Same with me Ron, and that’s been true throughout my life. The honesty of critters is just hard to beat. You can trust it, for good or evil, there’s just no dishonesty. Well, except when your dogs try to push Critter Feeding time and/or convince you they’re starving to death and have not been fed in DAYS! 🙂
Not fed in days, or walked in WEEKS. At least.
And add me to the list of people who connect with critters more easily, more often and more permanently than with people.
Yeah, Patty. I GET that. That’s about as close as I can come to wrapping words around the relationship with Mariah, Jack, my dogs, and the relationship I’m building with Skye the Kestrel. It’s magical when it happens.
The natural world fills me with awe, wonder and delight. Which is a great deal more than I can say for most of our ‘superior’ species.
Love that the owl was as interested in you as you (we) are in it.
It definitely had its eye(s) one me, EC, but I think it was mostly just curious.
One of the things I love most about the facial beauty of these short ears, is their facial disc fringe of “frosty ice crystals”…
I like that white fringe too, Patty, but it sure is a devil to expose properly. Much like the white rumps of Northern Harriers those whites are often “blown” in photographs.
Great image of such a beautiful owl Ron! I love their eyes.
Thanks, Ed.
Sorry I’ve been absent for a while–dealing with the after part of my mother’s death.
ANYWAY, here’s a little nugget for y’all just in case you’re ever on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” Did you know that the eye color of owls is a prime indicator of when they predominantly hunt? The yellow-eyed owls hunt largely at dusk and dawn and under moonlight. Conversely, the black-eyed owls (like barn owls) hunt predominantly during the deepest part of the night. Of course, that always and never paradigm is never operable in the bird world. 🙂
Actually, I beg to differ with you, Laura, my good friend! I’ve heard that said – and more strongly than you have stated it: i.e., without the ‘largely’ or ‘predominantly.’ But barred owls for one (dark eyes) hunt pretty much whenever they want to – I see our local barreds out in the day time quite a bit, as well as hear them late at night and see them at dawn and dusk. Burrowing owls (yellow-eyed) also hunt both by day or by night, as do snowy owls (yellow eyes) – which makes sense given the fact that the snowies often have almost NO darkness during their breeding season and little daylight during the winter. Barn owls (dark eyes) tend to be crepuscular but studies have indicated that they will become more nocturnal in the presence of great horned owls – which are fairly crepuscular – to avoid predation by the larger owls. Great grays (yellow eyes) have often been seen out in the daytime – and it’s always interested me that they are in the same genus strix as barred and spotted (ural and tawny) owls but don’t have the dark eyes of the others. Pygmy owls (diurnal) are pretty much exclusively diurnal. Mostly I think it’s a false generalization that someone came up with to keep things tidy and that we should just look to the natural history of each species, whatever the color of their eyes. Just my two cents!
HAHA Louise! Yep, there goes that conventional wisdom thing again. But notice I equivocated ALMOST enough to make it work. LOL! And your two cents is ALWAYS worth far more. I guess we humans like things nice and tidy so we can understand it and I fell for it. I should know better by now…you’d think, wouldn’t you? Alas, NO! LOL!
And Ron, I haven’t been far–I’m in Arizona now “where the skies are not cloudy all day.” Oh how I appreciate that perceptive lyric! Gotta get back here!
Welcome back, Laura. That’s a sad duty we perform with/for our parents and you have my condolences.
I am sorry Laura. Never an easy time.
Fantastic close up.
Thank you, Dave.
Stunning and, as you say, intimate. Hard to look at but equally hard to look away from. Also, sent you a message on Facebook re an issue I’m having accessing via mobile phone.
I’ll go check it out, Arwen.
You have touched upon what makes wildlife rehabilitation hard for me and part of why I can’t be as involved anymore. When you work up close with these beautiful animals you see the fight for life in those eyes, a depth of wild, and often you get to know their personality. And when their injury is too severe to save them in hurts deep in my soul. Did not mean to be a “downer” must be the overcast weather lately. We have may success stories too, but the ones you fail hit hard.
I think I know what you mean, April. If the Barn Owl I rescued off of barbed wire in Montana last summer hadn’t survived I know for a fact that I’d be haunted by it to this day. The fact that it did survive is largely due to the efforts of the Montana Raptor Conservation Center in Bozeman.
For both April and Ron: It saddens me to think that you feel you have’failed’ those birds in your care if you are unable to release them. Yes, of course, that is always our goal with each and every one. But after more than 30 years as a wildlife rehabilitator, including 26 specializing in raptors, I have had to learn and accept that WHATEVER you can do for them is a gift. Even if that means a gentle death rather than one of pain, suffering, fear, infection, or starvation. Ron – even if your barn owl had not been releasable (and unfortunately the vast majority of barbed wire injuries result in unfixable problems like dry gangrene, severed tendons, shredded skin, broken bones), your extricating him saved him immense amounts of stress and pain. With us, if we know that we have given our absolute best to every bird that comes in, despite the outcome, we don’t feel we have failed. Considering the conditions in which most of them arrive, the constant balancing of stress (just being around humans much less the handling, surgeries, x-rays) with necessary treatments, the ones we are able to return to the wild should be considered the miracles, not the standard! That doesn’t mean the losses are not very sad and painful nor the euthanasia decision difficult each and every time, if that’s what we have to do, but we do not feel we have failed by giving them every chance we could.
Louise, if “my” Barn Owl had not survived I wouldn’t have felt I had “failed” the bird as long as I had made every prudent effort to save it (which I believe I did). Its death would have haunted me for a long time, partly because I became so intimate with it during the rescue, but I wouldn’t have felt like I had failed the bird.
Thanks for that clarification, Ron. I guess I was responding mostly to April’s use of the term and wanted to try to mitigate that feeling.
I’ m glad you can feel that way. I can’t. Every bird, proghorn, horse or other animal that dies or suffers because of an encountervwith that goddamned stuff, makes me feel guilty for being part of the human race…i can’t even erase the image from my mind, however hard I try…
Louise, you have been one of my very favorite humans since the minute I “met” you online. You’ve always been a north star to me in the rehab world and one day, I hope to take you out in the field with a healthy bird. There’s a special joy in that. At the same time, I’ve believed the rehab work I’ve done was payback for the utter joy of flying a healthy bird. I need to do more, but need to be certain I would do no harm with my often dysfunctional right hand.
Simply beautiful! I’m constantly amazed and inspired by the beauty in nature. From the smallest to the largest, it’s always there if we only look for it.
It sure is, Larry. It’s so very sad that most folks are largely oblivious to it.
Simply magnificent Ron!
Charlotte
Thank you, Charlotte.
Beautiful bird
Thanks, Carol.
What a gorgeous bird. Beautiful Ron, and from a moving car no less!
Colin, I think I had actually stopped moving for a couple of seconds when this shot was taken but if I remember correctly the engine was still running.
Those eyes penetrate deep into the human soul! Are we friend or foe?
They do, don’t they, Dennis? Well said.
hi Ron,
Your words, “Nature is just about the only thing that inspires reverence in me these days” resonate with me. Thanks for sharing your ventures into The Field Of Wonder.
Cheers,
Dick
Yet another thing we share in common, Dick. Thank you.
BEAUTIFUL – a wonderful, detailed, intimate photo that inspires awe for sure. 🙂 We’re doing the rain/snow/blow thing (30 to 40mph) tho it’s just 32 at the moment to it’s not accumulating much. A different story in Fairfield/Power/Conrad where the power is out – been awhile since we had a “spring dump” and the moisture is MUCH needed.
Wow, if Conrad is involved then my old home town of Cut Bank probably is too. My cousins who still live on and operate the farm will be delighted with the moisture, though less so with the wind and power outages. As you know, up there you learn to take the bad with the good when it comes to weather.
It could be just the light, but it looks as if he may have had a meal recently – the red on the beak? And yes, yes. Nature is the best part of us, if only we as a species could realize it, as you do.
That probably is dried blood, Deborah, but who knows how long it had been since the bird had eaten.
OMG, Ron – So sorry you didn’t have the time in the field to enjoy this majestic owl but you must have been thrilled to see what you managed to capture “on the run”!! I wish I had Patty’s exspansive descriptive words for what I wish I could say about this gorgeous Raptor! Just know I’m thrilled to have enjoyed your work 10 days ago. I love all creatures but the preditors both birds and mammals just blow me away!! Hope you can get out soon with your trusty camera to capture more of Nature’s beauties!!
Thank you, Jo Ann. I was actually able to spend several minutes with this bird but that was from significantly further away.
What a lovely shot, and I agree about the sense of reverence that wildlife inspires! I was very happy to read this morning that here in NH, the Fish and Wildlife Commission has dropped their plans for a lottery-based trapping and killing of 50 bobcats, in the face of overwhelming public opposition (including my own emails). What a relief! I’ve seen these magnificent animals on the land here and felt that same reverence. Even my landlord, who raises free range chickens that roam outdoors, deeply appreciates them…
That’s great news about the bobcats, Alison. And that your landlord appreciates them. Since he raises free range chickens that’s saying a lot.
I echo Zaphir’s post–how fortunate we are to have these “wild things” in our lives–now, more than ever. Thanks Ron…
“how fortunate we are to have these “wild things” in our lives”
I can’t imagine not having them, Christine – that would take much of the joy out of my life.
Wonderful shot Ron!
When looking at the eyes it almost looks like the owl is looking on each side of you, as if you are no concern to him/her.
Great picture, thanks for sharing.
Dick, Based on its body language I’m pretty sure the owl was more curious than concerned about my vehicle as I passed.
Gosh Ron…that is just perfect in every way. I have a soft spot for Shorties as I shoot them here in NY. Such graceful creatures…you captured this one so spot on!!
That “soft spot” is hard to avoid with this species, isn’t it. Zaphir? I understand completely…