{"id":4811,"date":"2012-03-19T17:33:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T23:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=4811"},"modified":"2012-03-27T15:46:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T21:46:15","slug":"short-eared-owl-hunting-from-a-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/19\/short-eared-owl-hunting-from-a-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-eared Owl Hunting From A Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were\u00a0driving out of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on our way home\u00a0when we spotted this Short-eared Owl perched on a large double post at the top of a long, grinding hill.\u00a0 I was pulling the camping trailer so we made a lot of\u00a0racket and raised a huge cloud of dust\u00a0on the gravel road so I figured there was no chance this bird would let that big noisy rig close enough for decent shots.\u00a0 But it did –\u00a0though just barely.<\/p>\n

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\"short-eared-owl-6099\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here it was trying to decide if we were enough of a potential threat to fly off but soon it relaxed and seemed to accept our presence.<\/p>\n

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\"short-eared-owl-6105\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Almost immediately the owl began to scour the slope to the right for potential prey.<\/p>\n

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\"short-eared-owl-6107\"<\/a>\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0When it spotted something it took off…<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-6108\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0gained speed as it descended down the relatively steep slope…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-6109\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0and this is the last decent shot I got as it got close to the grasses and I lost focus on the bird.<\/p>\n

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\"short-eared-owl-6092\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0But the owl obviously liked that post as a hunting platform and almost immediately returned to it (though these last shots are from an earlier sequence).\u00a0\u00a0 It very quickly spotted what was probably another vole in the grasses<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-6093\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

and went after it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-6094\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I was able to get a couple more acceptable shots as it descended the hill…<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-6095\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

and lost focus again as it got close to the grasses.<\/p>\n

I wish I’d been\u00a0better prepared for this opportunity.\u00a0 By the time we’d seen this owl we were almost to the interstate after 30 miles of rough dirt roads\u00a0while pulling the trailer and I was concentrating more on driving than on any last-minute photographic subjects we might happen across so my camera settings weren’t the best\u00a0 for this situation.\u00a0 I needed a little more shutter speed but just didn’t think to make any adjustments with all that was going on.\u00a0 Hopefully I learned something that day.<\/p>\n

But I do remember thanking the owl out loud for giving us one last look\u00a0at the primary\u00a0species that we had come to the refuge in search of.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A nice\u00a0parting gift from the bird\u00a0just before we hit the pavement\u00a0for the\u00a0seven hour drive home.<\/p>\n

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

We were\u00a0driving out of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on our way home\u00a0when we spotted this Short-eared Owl perched on a large double post at the top of a long, grinding hill.\u00a0 I was pulling the camping trailer so we made a lot of\u00a0racket and raised a huge cloud of dust\u00a0on the gravel road so I figured there was no chance this bird would let that big noisy rig close enough for decent shots.\u00a0 But it did –\u00a0though just barely.   \u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0Here it was trying to decide if we were enough of a potential threat to fly off but soon it relaxed and seemed to accept our presence.     \u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0Almost immediately the owl began to scour the slope to the right for potential prey.     \u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0When it spotted something it took off…     \u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0gained speed as it descended down the relatively steep slope…     \u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0and this is the last decent shot I got as it got close to the grasses and I lost focus on the bird.     \u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0But the owl obviously liked that post as a hunting platform and almost immediately returned to it (though these last shots are from an earlier sequence).\u00a0\u00a0 It very quickly spotted what was probably…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,9,15,360,356],"tags":[35,146,220,263,279],"class_list":["post-4811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-favorite-locations","category-owls","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-short-eared-owls","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-flight","tag-montana-2","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-short-eared-owl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1fB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811","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=4811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}