Cloudy day Short Eared owls, and a bonus for Bill Anderson ....

[retief]

I have not posted here in quite some time, need to become more active again.

First off, Bill A. commented in another thread about the Harrier and Short-ear interaction. This is from a couple of years ago, eventually the owl dropped it's meal.

Now, these are from a cloudy day in Stanwood.

Pre-dawn landing:

Takeoff - there is a lesson here, watch what your subject is doing, and adjust. I was standing behind the bird, but had noticed that every time it took off, it went "the other way". This time I was in "the other way".

 

[Bill Anderson]

I commented on the other thread about how you can anticipate when and in which direction a bird will take off through constant and careful observations. I have heard of birders criticizing photographers for not being "real" birders or observers of nature. I argue quite the contrary. We are very keen observers of birds and the other animals we photograph. We have to be so that we can find them and anticipate their behavior in setting up for our shots.