Silent Practice

Hi all! This is another of the juvenile Great Horned Owls Josiah and I followed around this summer. Ironically, they moved this month from the coulee a mile or so down the road to OUR coulee, and have been screeching away each night at our two Saint Bernards and one Newfoundland! Guess I didn't need to get that landowner's permission to access their preferred hangout spots after all...just needed to be patient!

This is certainly not an award-winning flight shot of a Great Horned, but something about it appealed to me, and I kind of liked the feel of it in B&W, so I thought I would share it here.

Yes, it probably looks best with more cropped from the left and perhaps even the bottom, but this is already only 50% of the original width and I liked the larger negative space.

I NEVER get over how silent these birds are in flight, especially for their size. It's just remarkable. This was only a couple weeks after these juveniles started flying, and it was the first time we had found them this far north in the coulee, so all that flight practice was apparently paying off.

Thanks for looking!

Field Notes:
Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/4 IF-ED
ISO 1400
1/250sec @ f/4.5
on beanbag in truck window

Processing Notes:
Converted from RAW using Phase One Capture One Pro 7
Minor adjustments to tone and contrast using Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and Viveza 2 in PS5
Converted to B&W using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2
Cropped to app. 50% original width