We had some early clouds on our South Texas Photo Safari this morning so I decided to take advantage of the very even light to see if I could get some good shots of an Eastern Screech Owl that nests near where we were shooting. Not only do owls seem to be more cooperative on gray days but the fact that the owl’s hole faced North wouldn’t matter so much since the clouds would scatter the light just about evenly all over.

And of course Screech Owls are practically gray to begin with so it seemed appropriate. The trick when approaching a wary animal like an owl is to be patient, move slowly and not try to stare down the owl. Moving in a circuitous path and not walking directly towards it is a big help also. In this case I was still quite a ways away when a Cooper’s Hawk flushed from a bush right near the trail. He’d clearly also thought of staking out the owl’s home. The owl of course ducked down into its hole, but soon popped its head back up to see if the coast was clear. You can see it alertly scanning the area in this shot:

Once the owl had settled down and come back out from its hole a little more to its usual vantage point, I slowly moved closer, taking a few shots at a time both so that it would get used to me and so I’d have something in case it flushed. Because of the poor lighting I used flash fill, set to –2 exposure compensation—which I determined to be a good mix of bringing out some color on the owl without making it look like a flash photograph.

The longest lens I had with me was my Nikon 200-400mm f/4, so I placed it on my D300S to get the benefit of the “extra reach” of the smaller DX format sensor, and added my 1.7x Teleconverter. I didn’t want to have to get too close to the owl and stress it and I knew that combination would let me get the shot I wanted without getting inside its comfort distance. I framed my camera vertically on my tripod and worked my way in. When I got close enough to get the shot I wanted I spent a few minutes capturing images with interesting head positions or when its eyes were open.

Since there wasn’t anything very interesting for it to see its eyes were never wide open the way they were when it first popped up, but I definitely captured a couple glances like the one in the image below. Yesterday when the ranch owner and I were helping the participants photograph it a nearby rabbit caught its attention and they were treated to some full fledged open-eyed stares as the owl thought seriously about a possible meal.

When I had my images I was able to back quietly away and the owl was still perched exactly where I left it, “sleepily” surveying its territory. And the skies were beginning to clear for another great day of photography and good eating here at Dos Venadas & Campos Viejos ranches. Thanks as always to our generous and expert hosts Steve, Hardy, Nora Nell, Richard and the newest member of their team, Danielle.

The image above is not cropped or really touched up at all. I simply used Camera Raw to extend the tonal range all the way from white to black (initially the image was very low contrast), then a quick pass of nik’s Raw Sharpener (which I prefer to the one in Photoshop) and a light Tonal Contrast filter brushed onto the owl. Less then a minute in all.

We’ll be back for sure next year so if you’re interested in getting some world class Texas bird phtoographs of your own we invite you to join us next April for our annual Spring Bird Photo Safari & Workshop here in the Rio Grande Valley: email us at safaris [at] cardinalphoto.com and we’ll send you an update when we have final dates and pricing for 2012, or keep checking back at http://www.cardinalphoto.com