Every year the\u00a0owls raised a family in one of the old granaries but until this trip I had never seen any youngsters until long after they’d fledged. They always nested high\u00a0in the rafters of one of the back granaries some distance from the house so I could never see them when they were very young. But this time they nested in an old granary right next to the house, probably because no one had been\u00a0living on the farm\u00a0for 16 months so they felt safe and secure there since there was no human activity around.<\/p>\n
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1\/13, f\/16, ISO 400, Canon Rebel XTi, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS\u00a0USM @100mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n And when I arrived on the farm\u00a0that year’s owlets were actually on\u00a0the floor of the old granary which surprised me very much. It was\u00a0cluttered as hell down there because\u00a0that granary hadn’t been used for decades except to store junk. Once I knew where the owlets were I placed a large piece of plywood in front of the granary entrance to give them more privacy since I had no choice but to use the nearby house, yard and driveway.<\/p>\n It was very dark in there when I took this photo – this might be the only time I’ve photographed birds with a shutter speed as low as 1\/13 sec (no, I didn’t use flash. I never flash birds). I was lucky to get anything sharp, especially since I was hand-holding my camera (no tripod).<\/p>\n That’s “gopher” blood on the old carpet in front of the owls.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/800, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n And this is one of the parents at 5:37 AM that same morning. It was in one of the auger cutouts of one of the other nearby old\u00a0granaries. This photo was taken only\u00a05 minutes after official sunrise (I know that because I\u00a0looked it up\u00a0– the sun comes up very early this time of year in northern MT) and I remember\u00a0hoping the owl wouldn’t disappear into the darkness of the granary before the\u00a0light\u00a0reached the bird.<\/p>\n I adore\u00a0warm light on owls and old wood.<\/p>\n I struggled with the composition of this image so I played with it a little. To avoid centering the owl meant cropping out the wood on the left which resulted in only shaded blackness on the left edge of the frame and I’m undecided how\u00a0comfortable I am with that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/great-horned-owl-8522.jpg\" "\\"great-horned-owl-8522")
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