Normally I don’t like to\u00a0publicly declare\u00a0“favorites” because I have deep affection for\u00a0and attachment to many of my photos.. Each\u00a0one is individual and has its own strengths and weaknesses. Typically, depending on my\u00a0mood, purpose and a variety of other factors, I may think of\u00a0a particular\u00a0image as a favorite one day and completely change my mind the next so choosing favorites is usually\u00a0an exercise in futility. For me\u00a0picking\u00a0favorite images is about like\u00a0trying to choose\u00a0a favorite child – it just isn’t fair and it’s often meaningless. That said, when it comes to my Burrowing Owl photos 3 of them always seem to rise to the top in a variety of situations\u00a0so if pressed I’d have to admit that they’re probably my reliable favorites.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nTwo of the 3 are photos that regular viewers have seen several times before – a juvenile\u00a0performing parallax so it’s head is almost upside down as it looks at me and a pair of juvenile siblings cuddled up next to each other with one of them also parallaxing me with its head tilted at an extreme angle.<\/p>\n
The image below\u00a0is my third favorite Burrowing Owl photo\u00a0and I haven’t posted it in almost 6 years so I’m sure most current readers have never seen it, at least\u00a0at full size. All three of\u00a0the photos are\u00a0featured in the rotating banner of tiny images\u00a0at the top of my blog so if you think you recognize it that’s probably\u00a0why.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/burrowing-owl-6449b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"burrowing-owl-6449b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nThis very young juvenile was one of at least 7 siblings that were practicing their landing skills on July 12, 2012 on Antelope Island. Here it’s about to land on top of the sagebrush in the foreground and just before it touched down it glanced up at me which gave me intense and direct eye contact.<\/p>\n
So why do I like the image as much as I do? The reasons include:<\/p>\n
\n- the\u00a0eye contact in flight\u00a0from those big, innocent yellow eyes, of course<\/li>\n
- the symmetry of the image<\/li>\n
- the feathers lifted up\u00a0by the backwash of air\u00a0flow\u00a0on the tops of both wings<\/li>\n
- the deployed alulae (“bastard wings” homologous with the thumb)<\/li>\n
- the lowered legs and feet (although I do wish parts of both feet\u00a0weren’t hidden behind the sagebrush)<\/li>\n
- the colors of both bird and setting in the warm, early morning light (the lower background is the beach and the upper background is\u00a0the\u00a0Great Salt Lake itself)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
But I have many photos taken of the siblings and adults that morning so why does this one stand out? It’s probably a personal reason related to my still\u00a0developing skills as a photographer that many years ago. Normally back then I’d have lost focus on this bird as it approached because my\u00a0focus points would have grabbed on to the sagebrush in the foreground instead of the owl. But this time I was able to maintain sharp focus on the bird for 5 shots as the owl was coming in and boy, was I ever proud of myself!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/burrowing-owl-6452-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"burrowing-owl-6452-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nThree frames later I caught the owl just as it was about to touch down. I love that reaching and open right foot, especially given its placement between the two sprigs of sagebrush.<\/p>\n
So yes, playing favorites with my images isn’t always a wise thing for me\u00a0to do but sometimes I just can’t help myself.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Out of uncounted thousands of Burrowing Owl photos I’ve taken over the years and many hundreds I haven’t deleted this image is one of my 3 favorites.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58942,"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":[3,6,334,365],"tags":[953,31,510,62,4011,146,190,579],"class_list":["post-58940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-burrowing-owls","tag-alula","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-athene-cunicularia","tag-burrowing-owl","tag-favorite-bird-photos","tag-flight","tag-juvenile","tag-landing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/burrowing-owl-6449b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-fkE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940","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=58940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}