{"id":19496,"date":"2013-10-25T04:51:30","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T10:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19496"},"modified":"2013-10-25T04:51:30","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T10:51:30","slug":"sleepy-great-horned-owl-fledgling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/25\/sleepy-great-horned-owl-fledgling\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleepy Great Horned Owl Fledgling"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been breeding Great Horned Owls on the Montana farm where I grew up for many years and when I’m there in spring or early summer\u00a0I can usually count on several curious youngsters exploring their surroundings\u00a0as they learn the ropes.\u00a0\u00a0It’s a big farm with many\u00a0outbuildings so it’s always a challenge to find them once they fledge.\u00a0 It’s a pleasant early morning ritual for me\u00a0to wander around and try to\u00a0locate them – it’s almost like a game we play.\u00a0 That time of day they seem to prefer\u00a0east-facing perches on some of the 80-year-old\u00a0granaries and barns so they can bask in the warmth of the rising sun\u00a0on those cool Montana mornings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"great<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

They’re often in pairs but I found this one off by itself on one of those old granaries.\u00a0 These young birds never show alarm or nervousness with my presence though they’re very curious about me when I first approach.\u00a0 However, almost invariably it only takes a few minutes for curiosity to be replaced by…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"great<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/800, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0sleepiness.\u00a0 This youngster yawned repeatedly…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"great<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/400, f\/10, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0and enthusiastically in a relatively short amount of time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"great<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Soon\u00a0the owl could barely keep its eyes open so I retreated back to the farm-house\u00a0for another much-needed cup of coffee and let the bird be.<\/p>\n

I love that farm for a variety of reasons – family, memories and Montana’s famous “big sky” with its glorious sunrises and sunsets among them.\u00a0\u00a0I also enjoy the wildlife, including foxes, coyotes, deer, badgers, muskrats,\u00a0weasels, skunks, hawks,\u00a0Golden Eagles, many thousands of Richardson’s Ground Squirrels, a variety of songbirds and waterfowl\u00a0and even the occasional pronghorn.<\/p>\n

And then there’s\u00a0those wonderful owls!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

There has been breeding Great Horned Owls on the Montana farm where I grew up for many years and when I’m there in spring or early summer I can usually count on several curious youngsters exploring their surroundings as they learn the ropes. It’s a big farm with many outbuildings so it’s always a challenge to find them once they fledge. It’s a pleasant early morning ritual for me to wander around and try to locate them – it’s almost like a game we play.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19498,"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":[334],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/great-horned-owl-5377-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-54s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496","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=19496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}