Short-eared owls are a popular subject for wildlife photographers, partly because they are just generally awesome, but also because they are more active during daylight hours than many other owls, allowing us a chance to capture these amazing birds in flight.
Short-Eared Owl (Asio flammeus) | Talon Winery | Lexington, Kentucky
500mm | 1/2,000th second | f/5.6 | ISO 1800
Even so, it is not easy. Short-eared owls are still mostly nocturnal and thus are typically not active until dusk. We spotted our first one at 4:52 p.m., about forty minutes before sunset. The light at that time can be pretty, but it fades quickly and is challenging for birds in flight. The image above was taken at 5:19, just sixteen minutes before the sun dipped below the horizon. Photography is still possible for a period of time after sunset, but it only gets harder to capture clean images in the dimming light.
Short-eared owl hunting for rodents. These owls are essentially nocturnal counterpart to the Northern Harrier - life as a vole is not easy with an aerial predator overhead 24/7! Although they behave similarly, the two species are not friends - the harriers will harass and steal food from the owls.
Light is one challenge. The other is the fact that, like most birds, short-eared owls do not like us as much as we like them. These owls seemed relatively undisturbed by our presence, but they were certainly aware we were there, and they generally keep their distance. Plus their hunting style is to fly back and forth over wide-open grassy areas, close to the ground listening for prey. They cover a lot of territory and getting a good shot is largely a matter of being in the right place at the right time. On all my past attempts with short-eared owls I was not in that place, but this time I was!
When I realized one of the owls was coming right at me, my heart rate certainly went up. But now that I have been doing this for a while, I realize that one of things experience teaches you is how to not freak out under pressure (at least not to the extent that you miss the shot - there is always some level of freaking out!). As this owl approached, I knew I would likely only get one chance, and fortunately this time I managed to pull it off.
The blurry image below was taken just a few seconds after the head-on shot. I did not miss focus. The owl was inside the minimum focus distance of my lens, which is 9.8 feet! What a thrill!
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Greg
Buzzing the tower. I didn’t miss focus here - the owl is inside the minimum focus distance of my lens, less than ten feet over my head, checking me out!
Short-eared owls are widely-distributed - I missed seeing one in the Galápagos by just a few seconds - but they are relatively uncommon.