{"id":18158,"date":"2013-09-07T05:17:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T11:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18158"},"modified":"2013-09-07T05:17:29","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T11:17:29","slug":"owl-head-on-flight-shots-dont-have-to-be-baited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/07\/owl-head-on-flight-shots-dont-have-to-be-baited\/","title":{"rendered":"Owl Head-on Flight Shots Don’t Have To Be Baited"},"content":{"rendered":"

Head-on flight shots of owls have often been baited using\u00a0live, store-bought\u00a0mice.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 However they\u00a0typically require\u00a0patience, intimate knowledge of the subject,\u00a0a keen eye for interpreting behavior and even a little luck.<\/p>\n

I have many head-on flight shots of Barn Owls and Short-eared Owls and even a few of Burrowing Owls and not one of them was baited or set up in any way.\u00a0 I’m still working on that type of shot with Great Horned Owls and I suspect I’ll get some one day but you can count on the fact that they won’t be baited if I do.<\/p>\n

I hope I’m not coming across as being sanctimonious about it but\u00a0this is\u00a0something I have strong feelings about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This male Short-eared Owl was delivering voles to his family.\u00a0 He would hunt and when successful would usually follow the same pattern – land on a short, metal post with the vole in his talons, switch the vole from his talons to his beak\u00a0while on the post and then take off for the nest.\u00a0 So after watching this behavior I knew where to position my pickup (I nearly always shoot from my\u00a0vehicle) so that I could get\u00a0these types of\u00a0shots as he came into the post and then\u00a0took off from it.<\/p>\n

In this image, he’s coming in to land on the post.\u00a0 The background is mountains in shade.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,16,1493,360,356],"tags":[35,42,126,146,1646,256,279,315],"class_list":["post-18158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-short-eared-owls","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-baiting","tag-ethics","tag-flight","tag-head-on","tag-prey","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/short-eared-owl-7128-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4IS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}