Burrowing Owl II

Some more images of the burrowing owl from Dallas, had such a great time photographing it! I hope to go back to see it this coming week and get some more images in some better light.

I do not have the shooting techs right now, having issues with my computer, but I would guess that they are close to the same as the images in my last post.

Click images to view larger size.

Burrowing Owl

1/800 | f/8 | ISO 200 | Fill Flash

1/800 | f/8 | ISO 200 | Fill Flash

On Monday morning my mom and I had the opportuinity to see the local celebrity Burrowing Owl. This owl has to be the most sought after and photographed bird in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. A rarity for this area, burrowing owls in Texas are usually only found in the Panhandle and never this far north (that I know of anyway). So when this individual was spotted along a country road about 10 miles outside of Downtown Dallas during the Christmas Bird Count every birder and bird photographer within 100 miles has been to see it since. It is a very cooperative bird, but has made it's home in a dangerous location. It sits literally inches off the road next to a hole in the ground, presumed to have already existed before the owls arrival, and although there is very minimal car traffic, numerous tractor trailer trucks whiz by every few minutes or so and the owl just sits there and watches barely flinching. It is not injured as it has been observed flying around, I guess it just likes living life on the edge, but I hope that it does not get hurt and will stay around for a while. Anyway, my mom and myself spent over one hour watching it and getting some images. It was a fantastic experience being so close to this bird and I hope that I will get the chance to go back for more images soon. The light was late morning sun diffused by some light cloud cover, so not the best, I used some fill flash to help out with any shadows and am pretty pleased with what I got. Here are a few images, I will post some more later on, so stay tuned.

Click images to view larger size.

Northern Harrier

1/2000 | f/8 | ISO 400

1/3200 | f/8 | ISO 400

Just got back from a short trip to Connecticut (not for photography unfortunately) so, sorry for not posting anything lately. Here are a couple of images that I took of the Northern Harrier that I encountered when photographing the ducks seen in my last couple of posts. Nothing special, but I was very glad to add them to my portfolio anyway since I had nothing of this bird yet. I hope to get out soon for new images, for now though, I hope everyone enjoys these.

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Some Gadwall's

Some more images from Monday afternoon's fantastic shoot. The most cooperative ducks were the Gadwall and I got some shots that I am very happy with of both the male and female.

1/500 | f/8 | ISO 200

1/800 | f/8 | ISO 200

1/800 | f/8 | ISO 200

Of all the shots to happen on, my flash did not fire on this one leaving the female's head in a shadow. I managed to bring out a bit of detail though and make it presentable, the interaction is just too good not to share!

click images to view larger size!

*Note: having issues with Blogger, when trying to view the last image larger you may get the second image instead. Not sure what is going on, I will try and fix it soon. Sorry!

Green-Winged Teal

Happy New Year Everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I had not been out shooting for a while due to the holidays, but was finally able to go on Monday to a lake close to my home and photograph some of the wintering resident ducks. I arrived at my previously scouted waiting spot among some reeds and got set up, threw some seed into the water in hopes of enticing some ducks that way, and then proceeded to cover myself in camo netting. I had not been waiting more than 10 minutes when I spotted a northern harrier on the other side of the lake (which is pretty small btw) that was making its way closer to where I was, I changed some settings in preparation and locked focus onto the bird. It was coming closer and closer and I began firing off, then it turned and started coming head on towards me about 10 feet off the ground. My 40D and 100-400 are a terrible combination for birds in flight as the focusing really stinks, but I got a few okay images as it flew right over my head. A really cool experience to start off the afternoon for sure! After that I waited for close to an hour before a flock of gadwall swam over and proceeded to get extremely close. They were soon joined by some northern pintail, green-winged teal, american coot and a female bufflehead. I got some decent images of all the mentioned species, and have yet to edit them all. I had almost one hour of good light before the sun set and the lake was covered in shadow. It was a exceptional and much better than expected afternoon and I was thrilled to get some nice images. Hoping for more, I will be heading back out this afternoon, this time with the 7D just in case of another harrier encounter. Here is one of the images I have processed of the green-winged teal, hope you like it.

Image Data:

1/500 | f/8 | ISO 200 | Fill Flash | Tripod

click image to view larger size.