Screech owl

[alloutdoors]

I've photographed this little guy several times before but it's been a goal of mine to get shots of him with his eyes open which I finally managed tonight. I recently acquired a new camera body and these shots wouldn't have been possible without it due to its low light capabilities, he didn't open his eyes and climb up to the edge of his hole until 15 minutes after sunset. I know this won't mean much to most of you, but the other camera geeks will appreciate this little tidbit, the shots where the eyes are open were taken at 8,000 and 10,000 ISO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lawdwaz]

Outstanding

[Zem18]

Cool pics

[Paula]

Beautiful

[grampy]

Very nice pictures! Thanks for sharing.

[stoneam2006]

Wow

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[wooly]

That's awesome!
I'm constantly checking out holes in trees for one of those little guys, but I haven't found any around here yet.
Those are some really clean/sharp shots for cranking up the ISO to that level! Did you use any noise reduction, or are these straight out of camera?

[Steuben Jerry]

Great shots!

[alloutdoors]

That's awesome!

I'm constantly checking out holes in trees for one of those little guys, but I haven't found any around here yet.

Those are some really clean/sharp shots for cranking up the ISO to that level! Did you use any noise reduction, or are these straight out of camera?

I shoot pretty much exclusively in RAW so everything generally gets at least a little bit of post work to bring the colors and contrast back up. The high ISO shots got a fairly minor noise reduction setting of around 20 in Lightroom.

[Jeremy K]

Those are very cool pictures ,thanks for sharing.

[turkeyfeathers]

Great pics !!! He's a lot browner than screeches I've seen. Thanks for sharing

[airedale]

Some years ago I pulled my drive in one snowy winter evening from a store run and could see something on my parked truck's mirror. I walked over and found that it was a little Saw Whet Owl just perched there with his eyes closed. He did not look in too good of shape so I picked him up and brought him inside to look him over. I could immediately see that several of his toes had frozen off and he was boney and  just about dead. I just happened to have a large bird cage so I set him inside on a perch and expected to find him dead in the morning. When morning came he was still sitting there on the perch still looking rough so I decided to see if I could feed him something. Happened to have some raw chicken breast in the fridge so I sliced up some small bite sized pieces and offered it to him. Man he gobbled that chicken up like there was no tomorrow. Well as a few days went by he came along very well and started to look like he was getting back to normal. His problem was he had no toes-talons so he would have a hard time catching anything to eat, turning him loose in the middle of the winter would have just been a death sentence. I kind of liked the little guy and it was not a big deal to take care of him so I did. He ended up living about another year and a half. Chicken was his favorite food but he also like lean red meat. His cage door was left open and he would come out and fly around for exercise for a bit and eventually go back in his cage when he wanted to eat or drink and sleep. 

 

I called him Hootie

 

[Pygmy]

That is quite a perch that Hootie is sitting on.

 

I was surprised to see that you  have a bust of my mother-in-law.

[airedale]

That is quite a perch that Hootie is sitting on.

 

I was surprised to see that you  have a bust of my mother-in-law.

BWAHAHAHA!!

[Pygmy]

Cool story, Al...

 

I was driving on a secondary road a few years ago after dark, and came upon a screech owl sitting right in the middle of the road.  I stopped thinking that perhaps he was injured and walked right up to him and took a picture of him sitting there in the road in the headlights of my truck.  He never moved until I nudged him on the butt with the toe of my shoe, at which time he took off flying, apparently unharmed.

[hunter49]

Great pics!

[Rick Howard]

I appreciate you waiting him out and sharing your photos.  Awesome stuff.

[airedale]

Cool story, Al...

 

I was driving on a secondary road a few years ago after dark, and came upon a screech owl sitting right in the middle of the road.  I stopped thinking that perhaps he was injured and walked right up to him and took a picture of him sitting there in the road in the headlights of my truck.  He never moved until I nudged him on the butt with the toe of my shoe, at which time he took off flying, apparently unharmed.

Dan I have walked up on Owls sitting in trees quite a few times, they just don't seem to have any fear of people for the most part. This guy was sitting in a tree in my back yard just this winter, he paid little if any attention to me.

 

[Rick Howard]

lol I have had owls nearly take the hat off my head when calling critters at night.  I kinda favor the ecall at night now lol.    

[Pygmy]

Hehehehe...I have had the same thing happen while using a mouth blown predator call at night, Rick..

There are advantages to being short..I figure that if I were a couple of inches taller, the owl would have NAILED me....<<grin>>...

[nyantler]

Incredible to see one let alone get such great photos... great stuff!