Short-eared Owls - Part III

On sunday i took another attempt to photograph Short-eared Owls, but this time I didn't went to Belgium, but stayed in the Netherlands and went to Zeeland, an area in the south-west of the Netherlands. The closer I got to the coast the better got the weather and it seemed to be the right decision to go there.

I arrived a little earlier to examine the area a little bit, as it was my first time at this location. Then in the late afternoon the first short-eared owl appeared. It came flying really close along the road and gave us (yes in the Netherlands you are most of the time not the only photographer) a great show. However the area was pretty big, so the owls were flying around and sometimes you had to wait half an hour until the owl came back from its tour, but who wouldn't wait for that short for a short eared owl. This time the owls came really close , sometimes to close for 700mm and I had a hard time following them with my Wimberley on the window mount. I wish I hadn't changed the AF settings of my 1DIIn to a bit faster reacting AF, because I usually use a slow setting in AIServo mode and it works well for me, but this time I experimented a little and unfortunately I missed some great shots. I had quite some shots where the AF picked the background instead of the owl. But lesson learned :-).

I hope that the owls will stay in this area a little longer and then I will give it another try, because I still don't have the images I want. :-)

Sebastian Erras
Wildlife Photography - Sebastian Erras
www.naturfoto-erras.de