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<\/p>\nOn a recent post about these Great Horned Owls I said I’d soon explain “the rest of the story” about the birds. This is it.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n I photographed this owl nine days ago at a cutout in an old granary\u00a0on the family farm in Montana. This is one of two adult birds and a single surviving juvenile from this years nesting season. Because of the notch made in the wood at the bottom for a grain auger this cutout is kind of an\u00a0unattractive one so I was happy with this particular pose because we see nearly all of the bird and part of its body obscures some of the notch.<\/p>\n Soon\u00a0after this\u00a0image was taken something interesting happened but in order to illustrate (sort of) the event I have to include two terribly blurry shots and an embarrassing explanation. As I was watching the owl through my lens there was a sudden explosive commotion that filled my viewfinder with wings and feathers\u00a0and it startled me\u00a0enough that\u00a0I flinched and the resulting shots were extremely blurry (it doesn’t take much of a flinch to have this effect when you’re shooting at an effective 1120 mm). At the time I thought that another owl had flown in from the right and attempted to land on the cutout next to this bird – it wasn’t until I arrived home days later\u00a0and reviewed my images that I pieced together what really happened.<\/p>\n Ok, prepare yourself for\u00a0two very blurry images…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The commotion wasn’t caused by another owl flying in from the outside, instead\u00a0it happened\u00a0when the juvenile (seen in the cutout at lower left)\u00a0flew up to the cutout from inside<\/em> the granary. When that happened the adult took off backwards in the opposite direction in an apparent attempt to make room for the\u00a0still-awkward youngster at the cutout – if the young bird had fallen it could have been injured because\u00a0it’s a good distance to the floor of the granary.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this next even softer shot we see the juvenile landing on the cutout as the adult falls away and begins to open its wings a second time before flying downward at an angle to our left. I was impressed that the parent bird was apparently protective enough of its offspring to instinctively react this way and this\u00a0quickly to the situation. These two blurry images are full frame.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/250, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n By the time I reacquired focus on the juvenile the young bird had just landed and was beginning to fold its wings as it watched its parent below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/320, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n After the parent was out of sight the youngster then focused on me as I “hid” behind the corner of another old granary and pointed my huge lens its way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But wait, what about the “ghostly apparition” mentioned in my title? If you didn’t notice it the first time, go back to the first image and look very carefully at the lower left hand\u00a0area of the black cutout and you’ll (barely) see the juvenile hiding deep\u00a0in the shadows and watching me with one yellow eye\u00a0as it\u00a0perched on one of the granary rafters (this bird may be more easily seen on some monitors than on others). I didn’t even know it was there when I was photographing the adult in the cutout.<\/p>\n I’m not really sure why I flinched when the commotion began. I was hand holding the 500mm lens and bracing it against the side of another granary when it happened and that may be part of it but either way it’s a bad habit to have when one of your primary photographic goals is to capture bird behaviors which usually go down very quickly. Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of a pattern…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a recent post about this Great Horned Owl I said I’d soon explain “the rest of the story” about the bird. This is it.<\/p>\n![\"great](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/great-horned-owl-0202-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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