crepescular me (1 Viewer)

After an early supper tonight, my wife and I decided to drive out to our favorite owl site, a small canyon about 15 miles away. There is a good place to park and look at a cliffsides about 300 yds away, full of eroded holes, also woods and mesa tops where we know a pair of Great Horneds hangs out. Two summers ago we watched them raise a brood in one those holes in the cliff, fantastic!

This is tough viewing, because the most likely place is in the deeply shadowed canyon face to the west, with bright sunset sky all around, about the worst for inscattered light problems.

About 15 minutes after official sunset (it had started to get dark in the canyon some time before), we heard the familiar hoot coming from somewhere in that rock wall. My wife spotted him first by about two seconds, with her 8.5x42 Swaro, me with my Zeiss 8x42 FL right on him. He was in a hole close to the old nest hole, and only the white breast bar was visible, but you could see it wiggle when he hooted, so we knew that was him.

The game we play is watch the owl as long as you can. It's not even close to ornithology, we just love owls. So you watch and wait, your shoulders start to hurt, you lose concentration, and finally he flies, catches you off guard, it is so dark that you can barely follow his flight, and you try to see where he goes, etc. The Zeiss is so light and easy to hold that, unlike my old Trinovid, I could one hand it while resting the other arm. This looks much cooler than sticking your stomach out, resting your upper arms thereon, and resting the bino on fingertips, which however does work admirably with a little practice. Even though a 7x50 is brighter, or a 10x50 has more oomph, the sufficient brightness, light weight and wide field of a 8x42 make it the best compromise for this odd and demanding passtime.

We saw 3 or four rounds of the owl flying from place to place, and I, not to say the Zeiss, saw one more than she, and won at the end. Woah, this little bit of fun made our day! Any view of an owl is precious to us.

That didn't have much to do with anything, but I just had to share it!
Ron

I would rig a tripod with it, if I had to watch it 15 minutes. Both of my Pentaxes attach to a tripod with a 15 dollar adapter.

Thanks for sharing your love of owls. Just catching a glimpse of an owl is enough to make it worthwhile. You are fortunate to live in an area where you can spot these beautiful birds in their native habitats.

Rohn,
You have put very clearly you enjoy owls. An spotting scope looks the next step. In my area (Eurasian) Eagle owls are not only common but also in expansion. In a tiny valley this former spring there were two nest less than 700 m apart, as GoogleEarth says. In one of them both two chicks soon forgot me, at less than 15 metres, and kept eating a raven. The solitude of the place must be the reason. And before sundowm there was enought time for driving 5 kilometres to have a look at a third nest. This last more suitable for spotting scope one time the cave is narrow and the best point of view is in the opposite slope. Some Eagle owl are high specialized raptors and in similar landscapes "working" different preys. Nowadays we have one whose favourite diet consist in Grey Herons and White Storks.
Last year, one night I get out with the 8.5X42EL and 10X42FL for comparing, I realized the power is different. The daylight FL image had send me the idea of an overkill superiority by night. It wasn't the case. In one moment in the "skyline" of a ghost village, a young Little Owl (Athene noctua) was very evident over the ruins, almost by naked eye. After some scanning with the EL two more brothers appeared close but not against the sky. With the FL the latest were invisible. The reason, that colour of stone, light brown, is one where the EL works well. I laugh when listening about natural rendition of colours as a holy grial. I love my EL in part for this exceptional manipulation. In our more common white limestone, with grey from dead lychens, such advantage dissapears as tears in storm.

Fernando

Fernando,
Thank you for your story, which is much like mine, only better! It is nice to hear such a report from so far away.

As distant as we were from the owls, perhaps our persistent observing of the nest made them change their nesting site. They were not there this last summer. It seems to me that an animal might instinctively realize that two big round shiny things separated like eyes could mean trouble.

I am a skywatcher too, and many times we used my home built 6" Newtonian reflector to watch the raising of the two young Great Horned Owls. A few times when the atmosphere was steady I used 100x to good advantage, which showed incredible detail even from that distance. Of course the owls appeared to be oriented sideways. Their diet appeared to be mostly rabbits, squirrels, and mice. Growing owls certainly eat a lot, and the adults are excellent hunters to feed them so well.

I agree, the 8.5x42 EL is very effective in low light. I think you are right that this is due to its color rendition, which does seem a bit odd although beautiful.
Ron