![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/barn-owl-3557-horizontal-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"barn-owl-3557-horizontal-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nI like this bird’s rich colors and textures in the side light.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This older photo of a Barn Owl was taken five years ago, on February 22, 2019, at Farmington Bay WMA. It’s unusually bright light for a Barn Owl because this bird was still out and about at 10:17 AM. Usually they’ve stopped hunting by then and gone into seclusion for the day.<\/p>\n I have several photos with the owl in this pose but I’ve never posted any of them before because I didn’t think I had light in the eye in any of them. Last night I realized I had a catch light in just this one, but just barely. A head turn of another degree or two and there wouldn’t have been one.<\/p>\n I like the background (a mix of water and marshland) and the rich colors and textures in the owl’s plumage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A vertical composition provides even more detail but for my tastes this version is cropped a little too tight on the bird. Tradeoffs.<\/p>\n It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Barn Owl because they typically only hunt in the daytime during extremely cold and snowy weather when food is hard to find. This winter has been a mild one so they find enough to eat at night and stay hunkered down and hidden during the day.<\/p>\n That’s a good thing for owls but not so much for bird photographers.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like this bird’s rich colors and textures. (2 versions of the same photo)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/barn-owl-3557-vertical-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"barn-owl-3557-vertical-ron-dudley\\"")
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