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<\/p>\nI rarely see Great Horned Owls in wetland habitats so finding this bird was a real treat.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 250, 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 Great Horned Owls have nested on the maintenance building at Bear River MBR for years but they’re too far away, the setting is unattractive and they almost never seem to leave the building during daytime. Typical of the species they do most of their hunting at night.<\/p>\n The only time I’ve ever found one of the owls out on the marsh was four years ago last week when I photographed this handsome bird right next to one of the canals along the auto tour route. I’m not sure what ‘he’ was doing out and about at midmorning but he appeared<\/em> to be hunting rodents along the phrag edges because he did a fair amount of walking on top of the dead phrags in front of the living ones.<\/p>\n I spent quite a bit of time with him and one of my goals was a takeoff shot or two when he eventually took off.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 250, 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 Wouldn’t you know it, I cut off one of his wings when he launched but he didn’t go far.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 250, 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 He landed in a similar spot a little further down the road.<\/p>\n Here he’s looking pretty dapper, as if he knows how well he’s being framed by the two dead vertical phrag stems on either side of him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/8, ISO 250, 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 Once again he wandered around as if he was hunting for rodents in the phrags. Here I caught him in a little alcove in the living phrags that I think frames him pretty well for a habitat like this.<\/p>\n This was the only time I remember photographing a Great Horned Owl in a marsh. I’ve posted other photos of this bird in the past but these four are new to my blog.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: I may (or may not) be posting more older photos than usual for the next few days. Recently there’s been a perfect storm of events that have kept me out of the field including smoky skies, cloudy skies and the inordinate amount of time consumed by the vehicle-buying process and then adapting my new pickup to bird photography. A dentist appointment yesterday didn’t help. To aggravate matters I’ll be grounded all day on Thursday of this week while my new ride is in the Ford shop having several after market goodies installed. With my luck that’ll be the only day of clear, smokeless skies all week.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/great-horned-owl-0262-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"great-horned-owl-0262-ron-dudley\\"")
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