{"id":59610,"date":"2018-05-28T06:01:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T12:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=59610"},"modified":"2018-05-28T06:01:37","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T12:01:37","slug":"burrowing-owl-wearing-a-shocking-shade-of-lipstick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/28\/burrowing-owl-wearing-a-shocking-shade-of-lipstick\/","title":{"rendered":"Burrowing Owl Wearing A Shocking Shade of Lipstick"},"content":{"rendered":"

It isn’t really lipstick of course but that’s exactly\u00a0what I think\u00a0of when I look at my photos of this\u00a0little owl.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I always think of some little girl who got into her mother’s makeup and smeared lipstick on her face. In reality of course it’s blood, probably from\u00a0a vole that had been part of the owl’s\u00a0breakfast that morning.<\/p>\n

In my experience these little owls are usually more fastidious than this and keep their beak and face\u00a0pretty clean but this one didn’t seem to care about appearances.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, 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 it hunting from 3 different fence post perches and its beak was bloody the entire time.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I never did see the owl attempt to clean itself up during the entire 14 minutes I spent with it. Instead it was concentrating on the grasses near the various perches as it searched for more voles. I suspect it may have had a burrow full of hungry chicks somewhere that needed to be fed.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But I never did see it catch a vole\u00a0so it must have been more concerned about filling its belly and\/or feeding its offspring\u00a0than it was about appearances.<\/p>\n

I came across these 2-year-old photos last night as I was reviewing my archives for Burrowing Owls because of a growing concern I have. In the past 10 years or so this species has been relatively easy for me to find in my various bird-haunts but this year\u00a0has been\u00a0different. And disturbing. I’ve found very, very few of them and I don’t believe I’ve photographed any of them yet during this breeding season.<\/p>\n

I have to\u00a0wonder what’s going on…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

It isn’t really lipstick of course but that’s exactly what I think of when I look at my photos of this little owl.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59624,"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":[334,365],"tags":[510,3137,62,311],"class_list":["post-59610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-burrowing-owls","tag-athene-cunicularia","tag-bloody-beak","tag-burrowing-owl","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/burrowing-owl-4495-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-fvs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59610","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=59610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}