The Scene Begins

After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand on its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

A Great Horned Owl has taken up residence on the dentist office sign in our neighborhood shopping center. I was interested to learn from the Wiki article that they are also called Tiger Owls.  Hadn’t heard that one before, but it makes sense considering their markings.  Females are larger than males and can weigh over five pounds and have a four foot wingspan.  That’s a big bird!

Some other interesting Wiki tidbits:

• They are amongst the world’s most adaptable owls in terms of habitat.
• They prefer areas where open habitat which they often hunt in, and woods where they tend to roost and nest, are juxtaposed.  Thus rural regions can be ideal.
• All mated Great Horned Owls are permanent residents of their territories, but unmated and younger birds move freely in search of company and a territory.
• Owls have spectacular binocular vision allowing them to pinpoint prey and see in low light. The eyes of Great Horned Owls are nearly as large as those of humans and are immobile within their circular bone sockets. Instead of turning their eyes, they turn their heads. Therefore, their neck must be able to turn a full 270 degrees in order to see in other directions without moving its entire body.
• An owl’s hearing is as good as – if not better than – its vision; they have better depth perceptionand better perception of sound elevation (up-down direction) than humans. This is due to owl ears not being placed in the same position on either side of their head: the right ear is typically set higher in the skull and at a slightly different angle. By tilting or turning its head until the sound is the same in each ear, an owl can pinpoint both the horizontal and vertical direction of a sound.
• These birds also have 200–300 pounds per square inch of crushing power in their talons. An average adult human male has about 60 pounds per square inch in his hands.
• Young owls move onto nearby branches at 6 weeks and start to fly about a week later.

Take a look at the list of prey – they are definitely opportunists!

Hares, rabbits, juvenile raccoons, rats, squirrels, mice, moles, voles, shrews, bats, armadillos, muskrats, weasels, gerbils, porcupines, marmots, skunks, birds ranging in size from kinglets to Great Blue Herons, waterbirds – especially coots and ducks, raptors – up to the size of Red-tailed Hawk and Snowy Owls, woodpeckers, grouse, crows, pigeons, herons, gulls, quail, turkey, reptiles – to the size of young American alligators, amphibians, fish, crustaceans, insects, domesticated cats, and small dogs.

I didn’t have a lot to work with in terms of composition for this one, pretty much had to take what I could get.  When we first showed up, the nestlings were laying low behind the sign and weren’t even visible.  I stood on a rock to get just a little more height and was zoomed to the max @ 300mm. I shot for around 20 minutes, trying to get a decent one of all 3 in the frame without much luck.  Then Jessica saved the day by calling out a perfect ‘hoooo, hooo’ that got the attention of the one on the right.  I love its expression as it looked to see where the sound was coming from.

Roxborough Owls
1/160 @ f/5.6, ISO 200

After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to move it to a separate post.  This will free me up to post more pictures along with my training entries (it never made much sense to post pictures from some of my runs, and then include a picture of the week on top of that).  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I’m hoping this will keep me engaged in building my photography skills and help me to work harder for good shots.

I took Malcolm up on the hogsback Monday night to shoot some portrait photos to include in his graduation announcement.  While we were changing locations, I had the idea to have him jump off a rock and I would try and capture him in flight.  We tried a few different angles and two different spots (over 100 pictures in all) before I caught this keeper.  And what a keeper it is!

I was laying on my back between some rocks, ready for a rattlesnake to slither down the back of my shirt at any second.  I would start firing and then give him the signal to jump.  I caught him right at the apex of his jump, which is very cool, but what I like best are his relaxed arms and hands.  The pointed feet are great, along with his facial expression.  The casual way he is looking at the camera rather than the landing totally sells the levitation look.

Graduation Levitation
1/2000 @f/4, 18mm, 100 ISO