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Dangerous Home

by Josiah Launstein

Gallery: Man & FaunaPosted January 24, 2015314 views5 comments
I took this picture when my dad and I found a family of Great Horned Owls not far from our home. We asked the people that owned the farm if we could take pictures there and got some that we really liked. On the way back to the truck we noticed one of the young owls had perched on the fence near us. I saw the wind turbines in the background and thought it made a good picture because so many birds end up dying from windmills. My family and I are always afraid for Great Horned Owls that we see close to these big turbines. These windmills aren't super close but there's a lot of owls that live all around them here!

Also I would just like to say that I've never been bitten by more mosquitoes in one evening than I was while taking pictures of these owls! :frown:

Nikon D7100
Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4D IF-ED with 1.4 TC
ISO 2500
1/3200sec @ f/6.3
monopod

Note from Dad: Had to bring up the exposure on the foreground up a bit as Josiah had been photographing this owl's sibling perched in a tree against a darker hillside and suddenly spotted this owl. He quietly moved to a better angle but it looked like the owl was about to fly off to join its siblings, so he had to quickly squeeze the shot off without having time to adjust for dusk sky in the background. I chose to not bring the exposure up "all the way" to keep the feeling of dusk and match the scene to as close as Josiah and I remembered it...it really was last light. Minor tweaks in PS CS5 and Nik.

Comments

5 comments
Comment posted by Luke Ormand on January 25, 2015 at 11:12 AM
Beautiful and well conceived. I like how the blade of the OOF windmill touches the head of the owl (wether on purpose or not - this really drives home the point). Everything about this is a homerun. I would really consider entering this into contests with categories about sustainability
Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments
Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on January 26, 2015 at 7:11 PM
Hi Josh,

Well done. I think even though windmills can be used effectively for sustainable sources of energy, they can be noisy, are not very scenic, and can be detrimental to migrating and flying birds. You get the goal and dad gets the assist for the adjustments. I wouldn't change a thing from your posted image :wavey: .....................Jim
Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments
Comment posted by Carl Battreall on January 28, 2015 at 2:01 PM
Josiah,
An excellent image that shows the relationship between wildlife and the growing industry of renewable energy, that sometimes aren't very compatible. :toast:
Carl
Registered on August 29, 2007, 24 Posts, 222 Comments
Comment posted by Josiah Launstein on February 9, 2015 at 2:29 AM
Thank you everyone for commenting on my picture.
Registered on January 26, 2013, 52 Posts, 126 Comments
Comment posted by Mike Ramy on February 13, 2015 at 9:41 AM
Hey Josiah,
:cool: Man !
Congratulations on the WP . . .
Registered on June 16, 2012, 567 Posts, 2809 Comments