{"id":7912,"date":"2012-09-23T11:09:33","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T17:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=7912"},"modified":"2012-09-23T17:55:17","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T23:55:17","slug":"winter-barn-owls-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/23\/winter-barn-owls-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Barn Owls In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Normally it’s very difficult to find Barn Owls hunting in daylight but an extremely cold winter a few years ago caused some of them around here to continue\u00a0hunting into mid-morning.\u00a0 They were looking for voles in the wetlands and it was fascinating to watch and photograph them as they effortlessly cruised over the phragmites and grasses, occasionally turning abruptly and diving for prey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

It was very cold and frosty with lots of moisture in the air which turned the sky background a color that appeals to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes they were low enough to get the Phragmites in the setting.\u00a0 Phragmites is a scourge to wetland managers but I’ve always liked it for backgrounds.<\/p>\n

When the owls would fly west I would often get light on the entire\u00a0 bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But when they flew east they were sidelit.\u00a0 I like both effects.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Partly because of their deeply set eyes it’s a challenge to get catch lights in Barn Owls.\u00a0 But here the bird was hovering over prey and looking down at it so because of the behavior you wouldn’t expect to get light in the eye.\u00a0 I’m ok with that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

That time of morning the Phragmites\u00a0was nearly always covered with hoar frost and combined with the dark seed heads\u00a0it\u00a0often provided a slightly blotchy background but I\u00a0enjoy the natural feel of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This owl was slightly past me when I got the shot but for me the light on the lowered wing more than made up for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In this image most of the dark seed heads were covered with frost which made for less blotchiness in the background.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This is one of my favorite Barn Owl images, partly because of the head-on approach from the\u00a0bird – an especially difficult shot to get of an owl without baiting it in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/250, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a tough winter that gave me the opportunity with these owls.\u00a0 For their sake I hope it doesn’t happen again soon\u00a0– many of them didn’t make it till spring.\u00a0 I’ve included this shot (taken the following winter, which was less frigid than the year before) to give you a feeling what these conditions are like for these owls.\u00a0 This image was taken in the morning before the fog cleared and after the bird had been hunting all night.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Normally it’s very difficult to find Barn Owls hunting in daylight but an extremely cold winter a few years ago caused some of them around here to continue\u00a0hunting into mid-morning.\u00a0 They were looking for voles in the wetlands and it was fascinating to watch and photograph them as they effortlessly cruised over the phragmites and grasses, occasionally turning abruptly and diving for prey.   1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in It was very cold and frosty with lots of moisture in the air which turned the sky background a color that appeals to me.     1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Sometimes they were low enough to get the Phragmites in the setting.\u00a0 Phragmites is a scourge to wetland managers but I’ve always liked it for backgrounds. When the owls would fly west I would often get light on the entire\u00a0 bird.     1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in But when they flew east they were sidelit.\u00a0 I like both effects.     1\/3200, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not baited, set up or called in Partly because of their deeply set eyes it’s a challenge to get catch lights in Barn Owls.\u00a0 But here the bird was hovering over prey and looking down at it so because of the behavior you wouldn’t expect to get…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[344,334],"tags":[42,45,566,146,148,856,250,309,855],"class_list":["post-7912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barn-owls","category-birds","tag-baiting","tag-barn-owl","tag-catch-light","tag-flight","tag-fog","tag-hoar-frost","tag-phragmites","tag-tyto-alba","tag-winter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-23C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7912","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=7912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}