short-eared owl

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas, and thanks for all the kind words over the year on my photo efforts. Cheers!

Just drifting around the fields.

a great bird to see let alone photograph

Last 2 from my recent encounter with 7 of these beauties

A Short-eared Owl about to reduce the World's vole population by one!

Unlike us togs, they're not affected by light levels when doing their stuff!

Lovely to see them hunting when there's still a bit of autumnal colour around.

Last image from a great day

demonstrates how light these birds are, seems unbelievable that that small perch can take the owl

a foot or two above the field and absolutely stationary over its intended target

it was very noticeable that the owls had bespoke patches to hunt over, the obvious happened when the rules were broken

there were only Canon cameras so no one can blame my noisy Nikon shutter for this one

one of 7 hunting in fields, like waiting for a bus, none for ages then 7 come at once

Flying straight at me, inducing a mild panic attack as the camera failed initially to focus on it. Fortunately it did, a split second before the owl changed direction.

Another head-on shot, though it wasn't looking right at me here, and the light had faded somewhat from that lovely golden colour before dusk.

Another SEO from yesterday.

This chap got fed up with being disturbed by the sheep, and flew up to perch on one of the plastic fence posts. All fluffed up resulting in a slightly different face shape for an SEO.

Having a look around the fields as the sun disappeared behind the nearby hills.

On the up, and straight over out heads.

The last one for a while as I won't have the chance to get out for a week or 2 and I've also ran out of shots of these beauties unless i start posting the blurred 'nearly got it' series.......lol.

This is the result of low light and a wide open lens... In order to keep the shutter speed up, I had to open up the lens and hence lost the sort of DOF I normally like. But the end result was pretty interesting, when I caught this chase. The look on the chasing bird is so intense, and the...

I'm still waiting for a closer encounter with some sun.........but then aren't we all.....

Another image of the SEO on my local patch, part of the Second Severn Bridge can be seen in the background. I hope to get in another visit on Friday, I just can't get enough of this wonderful Owl. Catch up later, off to do my gardening job today.

From a glorious sunny hour or two with them some days back.

Had another good day watching & photographing this super Owl.