![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/short-eared-owl-5233-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-5233-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nFew subjects have more appeal than curious Short-eared Owl youngsters, especially when they’re bobbing their heads into weird positions.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I photographed these two about two years ago (5\/30\/16) in northern Utah. This one was perched on\u00a0top of an upside down tumbleweed right next to the road. Short-eared Owl chicks leave the nest at the very tender age of 12-18 days and wander on foot until they fledge\u00a0(first flight) at about 27 days of\u00a0age – if\u00a0these siblings had actually fledged\u00a0they’d done so very recently. Neither of them\u00a0exhibited any fear at all of my pickup and that concerned me with them\u00a0so very\u00a0close to the road (so close that I couldn’t fit its virtual tail in the frame).<\/p>\n These youngsters were both using parallax on\u00a0my pickup\u00a0– moving their heads, bobbing them\u00a0rhythmically from side to side, then forward, then back.\u00a0Sometimes their heads\u00a0were\u00a0almost completely upside down and during the entire performance they kept their eyes locked on me. Audubon describes the behavior as follows:<\/p>\n Interpreting the results of parallax takes learning and practice so very young owls do it much more often than adults.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The other youngster was only a few feet away on a pile of dirt and at a steeper angle to me. At this close distance\u00a0I didn’t have enough depth of field to get\u00a0its entire body sharp but I wanted to show that this one was using parallax on my pickup too.<\/p>\n Normally I wouldn’t get anywhere near this close to wild\u00a0owls of any age but they were so close to the road I had no practical\u00a0choice. Besides I was actually hoping that the nearness of my pickup would cause them to move off into the thick grasses and further away from the road but typical of very young owls\u00a0they showed\u00a0no fear. It’s far from unusual for me to find road-killed\u00a0owls in this area.<\/p>\n Thankfully the road had very little traffic in the early morning\u00a0and the next time I drove by a couple of hours later they were nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – For those who may be wondering I was actually able to get my epidural yesterday afternoon despite my episode in the emergency room the day before. They almost wouldn’t allow me to have it.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few subjects have more appeal than curious Short-eared Owl youngsters, especially when they’re bobbing their heads into weird positions.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/short-eared-owl-5363b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-5363b-ron-dudley\\"")
1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n