Hawk Owl with mouse
I happened to be in the right place at the right time as this wild owl was baited by other photographers. It was a very cold hard winter with vast amounts of s...
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I happened to be in the right place at the right time as this wild owl was baited by other photographers. It was a very cold hard winter with vast amounts of snow that this owl was literally starving. I don't condone the action of feeding wildlife for the sake of a photo but having shown up at the time it was happening I did take advantage of getting the shots.
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Jan, 2015Views
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sarahdarvill
December 16, 2016
You should enter this in my Birds in Flight photo challenge!
The link is:
https:// viewbug.com/challenge/free-as-a-bird-photo-challenge-by-sarahdarvill
The link is:
https:// viewbug.com/challenge/free-as-a-bird-photo-challenge-by-sarahdarvill
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken in a farmer's field just north of Edmonton Alberta. A friend and I were driving around looking for snowy owls when we spotted a group of other photographers that we knew in the field so we stopped and went to join them.Time
This was taken shortly after noon on a winter's day in February. Clear blue skies are rare in this area in the winter but on this Sunday afternoon we got very luckyLighting
This was taken with entirely natural sunlight with no modifiers.Equipment
I took this photo handheld with my Nikon D90 camera, ISO 200 and 70-200 f2.8 lens at 1/2000 sec f 5.6 and the focal length was at 200mmInspiration
The inspiration for this photo was a chance to take a photo of a hawk owl in the wild. It was pure luck that my friend and I came upon the other photographers that hand originally found the owl in the trees.Editing
The only processing to this shot was the RAW to Jpeg conversion and a bit of cropping.In my camera bag
My camera bag has changed since this shot was taken. It now includes a D600, the following Nikon lenses 50mm f1.4, 85 mm f 1.8, 70-300 f 4.5 -5.6, 24-70 mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8, Tokina 11-16 f2.8, Sigma 105mm macro f2.8, 2 Nikon SB-800 speedlights, 2 pocket wizard plus II transceivers, manfroto tripod and monopod and various other itemsFeedback
As mentioned before I came upon a group of other photographers that were baiting this owl with live feeder mice. This is not something that I condone or would do myself but I didn't miss the change of a lifetime of taking these photos. This particular winter was a very bad one for our area with much more snow that we normally get. I honestly believe that this owl was starving as I witnessed it eat 5 feeder mice. It took the mice to its eating perch not far away where we could witness it eating them. After all the photographers left, my friend and I were deciding where and what to do next. The owl then flew to a near by power pole and perched all of a sudden it swooped down and caught a wild mouse took it to it's eating perch. I do not believe that under normal conditions it would eat this many mice. I personally believe it to have been starving as many animals and birds did perish that winter due to the large amount of snow we had. Please do not bait any birds or animals for the sake of a photo.
