Whoooo, me?

SunGlo

Florida burrowing owl.

Have fun,

Phil

dlplumer

Beautiful shot. How did you capture her?

SunGlo

dlplumer wrote:

Beautiful shot. How did you capture her?

Thanks Dan,

The official bird for Cape Coral, Florida is the burrowing owl. As such, they are very protective of their nests and range.

As a nest is discovered the City takes a GPS reading, maps it, stakes it, and adds wooden perch to give it a way to get away from snakes and such. This makes it fairly easy to find one of their nesting areas, not to mention that there's a fair amount of them around.

This particular bird was nesting in a large undeveloped tract of land in northwest Cape Coral. Since this one was somewhat "skitterish", I used my 100-400mm L IS lens with 1.4x converter to capture the image. Most times, I can get close enough to use my walk-about lens a 28-300mm L IS.

I'd like to say I hiked 40 miles to get the shot, but the truth is I stepped out of my vehicle and walked across the road. Sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?

Maestro

SunGlo wrote:

Thanks Dan,

The official bird for Cape Coral, Florida is the burrowing owl. As such, they are very protective of their nests and range.

As a nest is discovered the City takes a GPS reading, maps it, stakes it, and adds wooden perch to give it a way to get away from snakes and such. This makes it fairly easy to find one of their nesting areas, not to mention that there's a fair amount of them around.

This particular bird was nesting in a large undeveloped track of land in northwest Cape Coral. Since this one was somewhat "skitterish", I used my 100-400mm L IS lens with 1.4x converter to capture the image. Most times, I can get close enough to use my walk-about lens a 28-300mm L IS.

I'd like to say I hiked 40 miles to get the shot, but the truth is I stepped out of my vehicle and walked across the road. Sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?

Hey, I have done that on many, many occasions. I love birding by vehicle. Nice portrait. I've always loved the eyes on burrowing owls. Is its beak crooked or is it some optical illusion?

SunGlo

Maestro wrote:

Hey, I have done that on many, many occasions. I love birding by vehicle. Nice portrait. I've always loved the eyes on burrowing owls. Is its beak crooked or is it some optical illusion?

Thanks Stephen,

I agree with you about their eyes, they make you feel like they can look right into your soul.

When you invade their territory, burrowing owls start bobbing up and down and making strange movements with their heads. Sometimes this movement can cause an optical illusion that makes their facial features look skewed or out of proportion. I usually "chat" with them in an attempt to calm them down, but this one was not having a very good day hence the appearance of a slightly bent beak.

dbaker1221

good shot

SunGlo

dbaker1221 wrote:

good shot

Thanks Dave.

Awais Yaqub

That is smooth !

very nice

SunGlo

Awais Yaqub wrote:

That is smooth !

very nice

Thanks Awais.