![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/short-eared-owl-7627-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7627-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nMy, what long wings you have!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This male Short-eared Owl in Montana’s Centennial Valley was as much of a creature of habit as I am. He would reliably catch a vole, carry it in his talons to this metal post, rest on the post for a few moments and then transfer the vole to his bill just before taking off to deliver it to his mate and their chicks at the nest. That routine was almost like clockwork. Occasionally he would rest on a sagebrush instead of the post but not very often.<\/p>\n The photo was taken in late June of 2010 but when I posted it to my blog in September of 2011 I was dismissive of the image because of what I called the “ugly” metal post. Back then I had little tolerance for the “hand of man” in my photos. But yesterday while trying to figure out how to organize my photos on my new computer I stumbled across the image again and realized how much I liked it, for a variety of reasons – including the great look at the very long wings of a Short-eared Owl.<\/p>\n In the original post the photo was processed poorly. It was too dark, I’d cropped it to a more squarish composition (4×5) that doesn’t appeal to me now and I had sharpened the image globally so the background had a little more graininess than was necessary (sharpening increases noise). So I decided to reprocess the image and post it again to get the improved version “out there”.<\/p>\n This is the result. For me it brings back memories of one of the most delightful experiences I’ve ever had with birds in the field,<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My, what long wings you have!<\/p>\n