![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/short-eared-owl-7400c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7400c-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWhat to do when horrid lighting conditions make it next to impossible to photograph birds in flight but Short-eared Owls with prey are flying by close? Do I try anyway and end up with poorly lit,\u00a0soft and\/or noisy photos, look for other birds that are perched or just pack it in and watch and enjoy the owl show?<\/p>\n
On June 25, 2010 at Montana’s Red Rock Lakes NWR\u00a0I had to make that choice.\u00a0While a\u00a0male “Shortie” was hunting voles to feed his family he would fairly reliably fly reasonably\u00a0close to the road where I was parked in my pickup and he often had prey in his talons but the storm\u00a0clouds were thick and dark\u00a0and I rarely if ever had enough shutter speed to get a bird in flight sharp. I had the option of removing my teleconverter to give me more SS\u00a0but doing so would make the owl too small in the frame.<\/p>\n
But this was a Short-eared Owl for hell’s sake!\u00a0He often had prey and it was one of my first opportunities with the species\u00a0so there was absolutely no way I wasn’t going to try.<\/p>\n
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1\/640, f\/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f\/4, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 IIExtender<\/em> , not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n Eventually I got lucky.<\/p>\n After much frustration and many “garbage shots”\u00a0the clouds opened up just enough for a few moments and the owl\u00a0happened to\u00a0fly by me on the way to his nest at the base of a sagebrush. The light was good enough to light up the bird a little and I just barely had enough SS to get him sharp in some of the shots.<\/p>\n Given the conditions I like this\u00a0photo a lot. The light-colored owl stands out nicely against the dark and foreboding Centennial Mountains in the background,\u00a0his wing position works well for me and the vole is\u00a0well-defined in his talons. But more importantly the owl is sharp which was a near-miracle in these conditions.<\/p>\n On this day I was glad I kept trying. Sometimes\u00a0you’re just beating your head against a wall but you just never know…<\/em><\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note: I’ve published this image before, over six years ago on December 31, 2011. But while my primary\u00a0computer is\u00a0in the shop my options are limited and besides many of my\u00a0current readers have never seen it so I decided it deserved an encore.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n They’ve said I’ll get my computer back late today or more likely\u00a0sometime tomorrow but from past experience I know how these things generally go (Murphy’s Law always lurks menacingly) so I’ll just have to take it a day at a time.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What to do when horrid lighting conditions make it next to impossible to photograph birds in flight but Short-eared Owls with prey are flying by close?<\/p>\n