Barn Owl on Post

I took this a couple of evening ago. Shame about the Oilseed Rape flowers waving about in front of him/her, but I couldn't shift my position unfortunately!

I'm a bit obsessed with these lovely creatures really, I rarely try to photograph anything else at the moment!




Pentax K10D & Sigma 70-300 APO at 300mm

That's a really nice picture and I dont mind the yellow blobs one bit. The snail adds interest but I think it might be more powerfull if you cropped out some of the sky above.

Beautiful image, I agree with Ken, crop a bit off the top.

Thanks for the comments both, really helpful!

I've cropped some off the top.

Does it look better cropped square, like this;




Or keeping the rectangular shape, like this one?




Or, something else?! Thanks.

Much better, I prefer the first crop, it looks more balanced, where was this taken BTW and what time of the evening is best to see them?

first one for me too

Thanks for the suggestions again, I like the first crop better than my original too!

I take all my owl pics in the fens, between Lincoln and Spalding. It seems to be owl central at the moment, but I guess that their main food, voles, are very active and in abundance due to the soft soil and plenty of water courses and open fields.

I usually just drive slowly around until I see the owls in the distance, and they are quite easy to see being white, and then watch to see what they do. They cover quite big distances very quickly, but from observing them for a few weeks I've learnt where they like to stop off, and also which river banks etc they fly along. I can usually park my car in a layby and use it as a hide, as they don't seem spooked by cars at all. As soon as I get out of the car, they're off!

As for time of day, I find 90 minutes before sunset to be the most productive, although very early morning is quite good too.

For this picture, I hid myself in the tall bankside vegetation in view of the post where I've seen owls surveying their hunting grounds, and got a few shots.

They're captivating animals for sure!!

Very interesting... its 'bat central' around here but sadly my skills are not up to the job!

Lovely shots, I'm very jealous. I thought you were going to say you were in north norfolk, as when we were up there in January we saw 8 Barn Owls in 3 days. Lucky if you see one a year down here.

Dan