Juvenile Burrowing Owl perched on a watering trough
You might wonder why I think it is tough being a bird photographer when it comes to Burrowing Owls.
Juvenile Burrowing Owl parallaxing on a sagebrush
It isn’t because I get up so early to photograph them.
An adult Burrowing Owl giving me a look of curiosity
It isn’t because they are hard to find.
Pair of juvenile Burrowing Owl siblings perched on posts
Or that I drove 90 miles to get to where the Burrowing Owls are.
Juvenile Burrowing Owl framed by a barbed wire fence
It isn’t because they are particularly difficult to photograph.
Juvenile Burrowing Owl looking at a vole on the ground
And it isn’t because I have already been up nearly three and a half hours by the time I get to where the owls are.
Juvenile Burrowing Owl parallaxing while perched on a fence post
It is tough because they are so funny that it is hard to suppress my laughter.
A young Burrowing Owl in early morning light
It is tough because I usually take a tons of images and that means…
Juvenile Burrowing Owl perched in front of a field of grain
It is tough to weed through the images…
Burrowing Owl juvenile with a firm grip on sagebrush
And tough deciding which ones to keep.
Juvenile Burrowing Owl stare down
When you take over seven hundred images in one sitting that takes a long time to go through them all.
Looks like this juvenile Burrowing Owl needs some coffee!
But what is really tough is deciding which images to share because it is hard to get bad images of these cute desert owls. Yeah, I know. “Poor baby”. 🙂
So I figured what the heck, I’d share a Baker’s Dozen Burrowing Owl images that I created yesterday!
Life is good.
Mia
Click here to see more of my Burrowing Owl photos plus facts and information about this species.
All images were taken with my Nikon D810, Nikkor 500mm VR with the 1.4x TC attached. Sorry there are no techs but there are just too many images!
A great fun series of ‘being stared at in a quizzical way’ photographs. Delightful Mia.. Excellent as always.
Thank you Stu!
Thank you Steven, Sarah, Larry, Neil, Susan, Roger, Dave, Patty, Linda and EC.
Susan, if there are pastures or shrubs like Sagebrush look for the Burrowing Owls there. They don’t like the shrubs too thick because they like open areas where they can hunt.
Roger, I never went to Cape Coral for the owls, I should have though!
Linda, I’ve had images published in National Geographic publications and I am still never sure about what they might find interesting enough to publish.
How you suffer.
Here at my desk I can laugh out loud if I want – but I usually sit and smile. Awe and wonder. And gratitude.
I do not think there can be too many burrowing owl pictures!!!
But.., as an amateur photographer (AKA photo ho) I truly wrestle with issue of how to decide how many photos to share, how decide which I want to share, and how to decide which of a series of similar shots is ‘the best’. I constantly ask myself.. “I wonder how the national geographic photographers do it?” Not as much about how they got the marvelous shot(though of course I want to know that too!), but about how they choose the one they publish over all the other marvelous shots they take.
This is “the day before” for me…nothing’s better than seeing these funny, funny little owls…thought each one I came to was The funniest…then came to the last one! How you can keep you camera still enough to focus on these mini clowns is a miracle!!!
A dozen burrowing owls shots every Monday works for me.
Another great series Mia… When I’m in Sarasota, Fl., I sometimes drive south to the city of Cape Coral, Fl.
There are a number of burrowing owls that can be found in vacant lots along the streets… sometimes even
in peoples front lawns… Did you ever get a chance to visit Cape Coral when you were in Florida?
Delightful photos! I pretty much figured out what the problem was before reading the post all the way through. This is an outstanding collection. I just wish I knew where to go to see them in person. It would appear that they can be found in the next county over from us, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. The best baby bird entertainment we’ve had here is watching young Barn Swallows in a nest right over the door of the headquarters building at Hueco Tanks State Park & Historic Site (El Paso County, TX). They’re funny, but nothing like your Burrowing Owls. The owls are definitely worth the effort it takes to get to where they are.
Sweet Morning outing, Mia. I can almost hear the chuckles, about 700 of them. TFS
Great shots Mia. They are adorable little birds and do evoke laughter like none other! I can relate to the drudgery of working through 700 images. Taking the photos is a lot of fun, editing them not so much!
Great expressions! And I agree, they make me laugh!
Poor you! You have my sympathy.