Short-eared Owl supplemental (20141129) Some shots of a cooperative bird

As promised here is a supplemental post of just the Short-eared Owl. We were on the phone with Kerri when I spotted this bird and had to hang up. We back up about a 100 yards and first shot this bird in a tree- a first for me.

We watched for a few minutes and deided to hunt. We watched as it made two dives and came up empty. Next it was quite a distance down the road when it went to ground and seemed to stay for a bit. Jamie said it looked like it was eating. We decided to move up the road and see if we could get a better look.
We found him in the field right beced the road, pulled up and turned the truck off. It made a couple of moves and then started to fly again. It just popped up on the fence post right beside the truck, what a break! A little fluff, and the best look I have ever had a pair of Short-eared Owl's legs.

It took a minute or two for it settle down, with another "fluff" or two.

Here is a look of how they normally look sitting on a fence post. 

Our eight minutes with this terrific subject provided us with a peek into their fabulous personalities. i am ceertainly happy he wasn't looking at me like this; "you want some of this?"

Here it is doing a "Quasimodo" imitation. This bird is hilarious.

Here it is using the back side of its talons to brush the frost off of its face. You can see little specks of frost falling to the ground on the right of the image.

It did seem a little interested in all the camera clicking coming from the truck! It wold occasionally peek over to see what we were up to. Don't you love the heart shaped face?

And now for a couple of flight shots, the only cropped image here except the first shot.

What a super encounter with a very cooperative subject! I am always amazed how the length of this birds wings in relation to its body length. They look quite a bit like a bat when they fly. 

I'll wrap this up with a cropped portrait, I hope you enjoy!

Put some Wild in your life this weekend!

Turbo