Short Eared Owls!

Following a conversation in a long lens thread on the forum, yesterday saw myself in a field in Northamptonshire with fellow forum member MartynUK. Unfortunately we had no sun at all throughout the afternoon so high ISOs were the order of the day!

Will definately try and get back there next Monday if the weather is good (if anyone fancies a trip let me know!) as I really want to improve on these with some better light.

As usual I have done a write up on the blog here and added a new Short Eared Owl gallery page on my website here. Have added a couple of extra pics that didn't make the gallery just for fun, I'm sure you can work out which ones!

1.




2.




4.




9.




10.



Edit: Forgot to say thanks to Martyn for the help with the location, much appreciated Martyn, thanks!

What fun, very jealous!

Good shots Danny!

I spent a quiet hour last night deleting loads!! I did put some on Flickr, but deleted all bar the perched owl, as I wasn't too happy with the processing - another try this evening!

Because of the light it was a real balancing act between sharpest aperture for the lens, speed to catch the bird and ISO to avoid too much noise! I used a slower shutter speed this time, but still ended up with ISO 6400 on ocassion! (and I discovered at one point I'd still got SR on with the tripod). I don't think, from a sharpness point of view they're quite up to my last visit. It will be interesting to compare the results from your moster lens and my sigma 120-400.

It would be nice to get a bit closer, as you said and I'll take a look at the local OS map to see if that's do-able! It would be nice to have some sun too!!!

Martyn

Nice set Danny. I've seen loads (and took loads of these over recent months mostly unsuccessful) so I have to say my favourite is #9. It made me laugh. It knows all those people are waiting on it.

You will now be addicted, looking for that one shot

It's just a shame we had no sunshine, would have made heck of a difference!

Don't really need another addiction Alan, still suffering from kingfisheritis!

There are unusually high numbers of Short-eared Owls in the UK this winter as a result of high lemming numbers on their breeding grounds. One Cambridgeshire site had circa 14 of them in a relatively confined area.

Great shots!

Dave