{"id":40011,"date":"2016-06-10T06:30:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T12:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=40011"},"modified":"2016-06-10T09:10:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T15:10:01","slug":"short-eared-owl-takeoff-and-flight-a-six-image-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/10\/short-eared-owl-takeoff-and-flight-a-six-image-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-eared Owl Takeoff And Flight – A Six Image Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

It isn’t often that I can stay locked on to a bird in flight for this many images after takeoff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2500, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Just over two weeks ago I spent quite a while with this Short-eared Owl as it hunted from\u00a0an old fence post in northern Utah. Several times it took off after voles in the grass, missed them, and then returned to the same post or another one a few feet away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This time it spotted prey in the vegetation across the road I was shooting from (as usual I was in my pickup) so it took off…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

almost directly toward me. This is the only image in the series that I’ve posted previously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I like this next shot in the series because the flight posture of the owl is just a little bit different. Though I stayed locked on to the owl for the next two shots I clipped wings in both of them so I haven’t included them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Notice that the focus of the owl isn’t on me. That focus is slightly to my right because a direct line of sight from the bird to the intended prey goes right over the top of the hood of my pickup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/5, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And that’s exactly the flight path\u00a0the owl took. After this shot I got two more relatively sharp photos but I clipped wings in both of them. Then I took my eye from the viewfinder and watched through my windshield as the owl flew right over the hood of my pickup and pounced on something in the grasses perhaps 75′ to my right. I was unable to determine if it actually captured the prey or not.<\/p>\n

I’m quite happy with this series. It isn’t easy to keep focus lock on a bird approaching rapidly head-on (especially in low light like this – note my ISO)\u00a0and my 7D Mark II did a good job of it. While I lament the clipped wings in four of the images I was able to get four sharp, unclipped shots after liftoff as the owl approached me.<\/p>\n

That’s better than I usually do.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: Photographers often want to know if I’ve used noise reduction when I shoot at such high ISO’s as this. I\u00a0rarely use noise reduction and I haven’t here. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It isn’t often that I can stay locked on to a bird in flight for this many images after takeoff.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40015,"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":[334,356],"tags":[35,689,2348,146,178,649,279,605,311,316],"class_list":["post-40011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-short-eared-owls","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-box-elder-county","tag-canon-7d-mark-ii","tag-flight","tag-hunting","tag-low-light","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-take-off","tag-utah-2","tag-voles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/short-eared-owl-3184-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-apl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40011","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=40011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}