Burrowing Owl – Same Bird, Same Perch, Different Angle
I’d like to make a point with this post. It’s one that every experienced bird photographer knows on some level but in the heat of the moment (it can be very exciting getting close to a “good” bird in nice light) it’s one that is easily forgotten. I’m getting much better at remembering but I still slip up occasionally. The point? Very minor changes in your shooting position can make huge differences (positive, negative or indifferent) in your photo. I’ll illustrate that point with a couple of shots that I took this morning. They’re not my best Burrowing Owl images but they’ll serve their purpose here. 1/160, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in This morning we think we found a new (to us) Burrowing Owl burrow right next to the road on Antelope Island that we’ve probably driven by several hundred times and never noticed. We don’t know for sure that it’s an owl burrow because we didn’t get out of the pickup and go tromping all over the area to inspect it. And right next to it was this juvenile owl, perched on a sagebrush, where we’d never seen an owl before. It had been cloudy but some light had begun peeking through a “crack” in the clouds when this shot was taken. It’s a “busy” perch and when the sun began to come out the bird was sidelit so I decided to change my position slightly… 1/320, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or…