![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/barn-owl-3100c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"barn-owl-3100c-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nUsing flash on owls at night or in darkness? Not\u00a0me. Not ever.<\/p>\n
For several years\u00a0Antelope Island State Park\u00a0kept an old semi-trailer next to the “hay barn”\u00a0they used mostly for storing junk. Barn Owls nested in the barn and one year when the youngsters fledged they often roosted in\u00a0the old trailer in the daytime. The trailer was long\u00a0so it was very\u00a0dark in the interior, especially early\u00a0in the morning when the sun rose in the east because the trailer doors opened roughly to the west.<\/p>\n
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1\/100, f\/8, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n These are\u00a0three of those young owls in the trailer, though there were actually five of them in there (I posted a photo of four of them about a year ago). The whitewash-encrusted metal testifies to how often they used this\u00a0sanctuary as a roosting site.<\/p>\n The black background and my sluggish shutter speed are evidence of how dark it was in there. Sometimes my SS was only 1\/60 sec or\u00a0slower, even with my f\/4 lens and my teleconverter removed. Under these conditions many bird photographers would use flash.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I never flash birds and I didn’t this time.<\/p>\n At night or in darkness flash often causes a form of\u00a0functional\u00a0blindness when the photoreceptor cells in the retina\u00a0become instantly saturated and it can take 30 seconds or significantly\u00a0longer for them to recover and the bird to regain\u00a0its eyesight.\u00a0If the owl is startled by the sudden very bright light and takes off when it can’t see the potential consequences are obvious and can be catastrophic for the bird.<\/p>\n Besides, flashing owls (or any wildlife for that matter) at night\u00a0is just plain rude! If you wouldn’t do it to someone you respect why on earth would you do it to an owl? At least human photo subjects can usually anticipate the flash and prepare for it but birds cannot.<\/p>\n No matter what our motives are – if we just want to get a “lifer”\u00a0for our photo portfolio or\u00a0we’re trying to impress our friends on social media or\u00a0we see $ signs when we lead photo tours with paying clients or as in my case when I’m\u00a0trying to provide interesting and quality photos for readers who follow my bird photography blog –\u00a0the welfare of the\u00a0bird should always<\/em> come before the needs\/wants of the photographer.<\/p>\n In my opinion there should be no exceptions, except occasionally for professional researchers who flash birds at night for studies that could potentially be of benefit to birds. And even that’s a little ‘iffy’…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Using flash on owls at night or in darkness? Not me. Not ever.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/camera-info-for-image-barn-owl-image-3100.jpg\")
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