![\"great](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/great-horned-owl-0259b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPhotographing birds is often a game of playing the odds.\u00a0Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 250, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II US, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n I photographed this adult Great Horned Owl just over three weeks ago\u00a0near the edge of a canal\u00a0at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge (I posted three images of this bird previously but these two\u00a0are new to my blog). I believe it was hunting during the day (unusual for the species)\u00a0but in this habitat I’m not sure what its intended prey might have been. It was often near the water’s edge so perhaps it was laying in wait for an unsuspecting bird to come swimming down the canal – they’re known to occasionally take large birds like ducks, geese and herons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 250, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II US, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n The owl was obviously hot. It was often\u00a0panting (gular fluttering) as it’s doing here but it still spent much of the time near the water instead of buried more deeply in the cooler\u00a0shade of the phragmites. Here I like the good look at those impressive talons on the raised right foot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 46 minutes I took many\u00a0hundreds of images of this owl but I had to make a decision about my strategy – do I leave the teleconverter on for excellent closeup detail or take it off to give me enough room to keep the entire bird in the frame if\/when it took off? One option would be to do both but I’ve learned from experience that in the 5+ seconds it takes me to swap out the converter my subject seems to always<\/em> choose that moment to take off and I miss the shots.<\/p>\n In all my years of photographing Great Horned Owls I still<\/em> don’t have a single decent image of one in flight so I opted for the flight shots and left my teleconverter\u00a0off for almost the entire time I spent with the bird. But the owl only took off once and flew a short distance and of course those shots didn’t turn out. After 46 minutes with my lens trained on the bird my shooting eye became strained and squinty and I became a little twitchy myself so\u00a0eventually I\u00a0gave up, left the bird in place and drove down the road looking for other\u00a0birds.<\/p>\n The end result? I only have about a half-dozen nicely detailed images taken with the teleconverter attached and I have far too many shots of the owl that are nice but they could have been better, especially for the purposes of making large prints or publishing. I gambled and lost.<\/p>\n Made me think of an old favorite song of mine, “The Gambler<\/a>“, by Kenny Rogers.<\/p>\n I should have folded and left my tc attached.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photographing birds is often a game of playing the odds. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.<\/p>\n![\"great](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/great-horned-owl-0345-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\nKnow when to fold ’em<\/em>
\nKnow when to walk away<\/em>
\nAnd know when to run<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n