Handedness is a preference for using one hand (or limb) as opposed to the other. It’s a phenomenon many of us associate strictly with humans but other vertebrates can also show handedness, including birds. For example, many parrot species have a strong and consistent preference for using their left foot when bringing food to the beak.
Based on my own observations in the field I believe that Short-eared Owls may also display handedness.
Though Short-eared Owls are one of the worlds most widespread owls, the species is highly dependent on the density of its small mammal prey, voles in particular. Since vole populations fluctuate wildly, Short-eared Owls show significant local variation in numbers and reproductive success from year to year.
Head-on flight shots of owls have often been baited using live, store-bought mice. I’m of the opinion that baiting raptors is not only unethical (a debate I’d prefer to not get into here) but unnecessary for those kinds of images. However they typically require patience, intimate knowledge of the subject, a keen eye for interpreting behavior and even a little luck.
This sequence is from the summer of 2010 in southwest Montana. The adult male was kept busy hunting and delivering voles to his family of two chicks and the female on the nest.
This was a day I’m sure I’ll never forget – my first up close experience with an owl of any species in the wild. I’d only been photographing birds for about a year and I still had a lot to learn – about my gear, about technique and about my avian subjects.
I’ve posted once before about the fighting Male Short-eared Owls I photographed in south-west Montana but I spent several days with these sparring birds and thought they deserved some more attention on my blog.
I’m always happy when I can get decent images of an owl in flight. If they’re carrying prey it’s a bonus. And if the bird is flying toward me I often consider it icing on the cake – partly because those kinds of shots are so very often baited, decoyed, set up or called in. As always for me, these were not. I’ve posted one of these shots before but I hoped it might be interesting for some to see a sequence of images as this adult male Short-eared Owl flew toward me with a vole for its mate before veering off to my right. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in This first image shows less detail and image quality because the owl was further away as it began to approach me but I decided to include it for context in the sequence. The lower background is sagebrush flats while the upper blues are Montana’s Centennial Mountains in shade. 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Four frames later the owl was significantly closer and flew almost directly at me before veering off – a pattern it followed more than once. I’d guess that it was his way of checking me out for any potential threat before delivering the vole. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Which he’s doing intently here. Eye contact can’t be much…
Something a little different from me this time… In the past I’ve had a wide variety of requests for use of my images, including such disparate projects as prints, magazine and book publications, non-profit scientific and educational organizations (which I nearly always allow without a fee), fancy rubber stamps, uses by painters and other artists as subjects for their work, an image to be lacquered into the top of the communal dining table of a new fire station in Temecula, California and several of my Northern Harrier (a type of hawk) images have been used in the AV8B Harrier (jump-jet) pilot training software at the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, California. But a few weeks ago I got something new for me – a request to use one of my avian images for a very large, “photo – realistic” tattoo. Jenna, from New Zealand, contacted me and requested to use this image of a female Short-eared Owl in flight (with brood patch visible on the belly) as the basis for the tattoo. Her tattoo artist, Matt Jordan of Ship Shape Tattoo, Orewa, New Zealand, needed a high-resolution version of the image in order to get enough detail to make the very large tattoo photo-realistic. Even though this shot was taken in extremely low light and doesn’t have quite as much detail as most of my photos, in the end there was enough. Matt Jordan is apparently very talented and in high demand so it took Jenna several months to get the project started. It’s a long, drawn out and painful process. Jenna’s first session with Matt lasted for 6…
A couple of weeks ago I posted two shots of this Short-eared Owl perched on this frost-covered rabbitbrush. In those images the bird was reacting to me which isn’t really a natural behavior. A direct look toward the viewer from those strikingly colorful eyes is certainly riveting but more natural behaviors also appeal to me. 1/500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 t c, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Short-eared Owls hunt primarily “on the wing” – they’re typically not “sit and wait” hunters like many other raptors. But this bird noticed what was probably a vole at the base of the rabbitbrush and its reaction to it was obvious. It stared intently down for some time which resulted in a natural pose that I like. Ron
This male Short-eared Owl was taking off from the sagebrush plains of Montana’s Centennial Valley. 1/1600. f/5.6. ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in I got three shots in the sequence that I liked well enough to keep. At lift-off he was heading mostly in my direction. I was shooting from my pickup and the vehicle didn’t intimidate him in the least. 1/2000. f/5.6. ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Almost immediately he began to veer off to my left… 1/1600. f/5.6. ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in and then gave me a side view as he flew off to hunt voles for his family (female and two chicks). I’ve never posted this sequence before because the very low light forced me to shoot at ISO 800 which is really pushing it for my Canon 7D so there’s some resulting noise in the images. I don’t like to use noise reduction but I’ve applied it to the backgrounds only for this presentation. Like I said in my last post, every image has strengths and weaknesses and the low light I was dealing with (especially for flight shots) forced me into some compromises for these images. They may not be perfect but I’m still happy to have them. Ron
I’ve had very few good opportunities with Short-eared Owls in winter but yesterday morning along the causeway to Antelope Island my luck changed a bit for the better. It was overcast but there was almost 6″ of fresh snow on the ground which helped slightly by reflecting some of the available light onto the bird. The setting in these three images is “high key” (light color tones with little contrast) because of all the snow. The background is the snow-covered lakebed of the Great Salt Lake. High key images don’t appeal to everyone. 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Northern Harriers and Rough-legged Hawks often hunt the causeway so when I first came across this owl my camera settings were already set for possible flight shots. I snapped off a few images at those settings before I made adjustments. I wasn’t particularly happy with the vegetation in front of the bird… 1/500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in but it soon flew a few hundred feet west along the causeway and perched on a rabbitbrush that gave a slightly better view of the owl. For this shot I had maneuvered my position to get some very out of focus vegetation in the mid-background to provide at least a little bit of color back there but the difference is only slight. 1/500, f/8, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up…
One of the primary functions of feathers is insulation and they’re very good at preventing heat loss. But this efficiency presents a problem – how to keep the egg(s) sufficiently warm during incubation, since feathers act as a barrier to heat transfer from parent to eggs. Typical bird body temperature is about 104 degrees F. and the ideal incubation temperature for their eggs is very close to normal human body temperature – 98.6 degrees F. That dilemma has been solved by most bird species through the evolution of the “brood patch” – an area of belly skin that loses its feathers near the end of the egg-laying period. As the feathers are lost, supplementary blood vessels engorge the skin of the “patch” so that hot blood is brought to the surface. Amazingly, the parent can even shut down blood flow to this region when that bird is off the nest. When the incubating parent returns to the eggs for incubation, he/she typically goes through settling movements that bring the brood patch into gentle contact with the eggs. The patch may be large or small, depending on a variety of factors including how many eggs are incubated. Some species have a single patch in the middle of the belly, others may have one each side or even three. Typically the patch is difficult to observe in wild birds, particularly in flight but I have several images of a female Short-eared Owl where it is visible. This female had two chicks that she was trying to keep warm during a typically cold Montana spring. The male…
I try not to play favorites when it comes to bird subjects for my photography but Short-eared Owls would have to be near the top of any such list I might make. I’ve had some luck with them here in Utah but my favorite area to photograph them is in southwest Montana. This series is from the summer of 2010 in Beaverhead County. I spent several days watching and photographing a male owl hunt voles and then bring them in for his family (female and two chicks) at the nest at the base of a sagebrush. I thought it might be interesting for some to see a full series of shots (of those I kept) as the male approached the nest with a vole. 1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, shot from pickup window, natural light Like me, this male was a creature of habit. I would watch him hunting far off in the distance and when he was successful he would always repeat the same pattern. He would bring the vole in to the vicinity of the nest and then land on one of two favorite perches for a short time before delivering the vole to his family. This small sagebrush was one of those favorite perches – the other was a metal post. Here, he is in the process of landing and you can see the dark vole in his left foot. He always carried the vole to the perch in his left foot (as I’ve documented here) and always transferred…
I’ve been frustrated by this species in flight in Utah for years, though I’ve had some luck with Montana birds. 1/3200. f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Finally, last summer, I found a mated pair on Antelope Island who were busy trying to keep track of and feed at least four juveniles spread out over several acres. Occasionally one of the parents would fly by relatively close as it returned with a vole for the youngsters. In larger versions of this image there’s a catch light in the eye of the vole but it’s impossible to see at this size. Ron
Short-eared Owls are always a primary photographic quarry for me whenever I visit the Centennial Valley in sw Montana but on this last trip I only found one. However, that lone bird made up for it by showing me something fairly unusual. 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These owls have short ear tufts (“ears”) but they are only rarely seen because they are usually laying down on the top of the head. Here they can be seen, but just barely. 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However, when the bird turned to face me for just a moment the tufts became visible. Typically they are only erected in a defensive pose and I don’t know if this owl deliberately displayed them to me because it thought I was too close or if a breeze from the back lifted them involuntarily. I suspect it was the latter because in the shots right after this one other feathers on the head look to be blown erect by the breeze. Either way I was glad to see the tufts. I have hundreds of images of this species and very few of them show the “ears”. Ron
