Barred Owl.

Barred Owl.Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, USA.

October 2, 2010. © Copyright Richard Mitchell,

Touching Light Photography - all rights reserved.

Here's the story:

After traveling to Mt. Rainier National Park last evening after work, and after spending nearly an entire sleepless night shooting images of the Milky Way (above trees, reflected in the appropriately named Reflection Lake), I then traveled to Tipsoo Lake just outside the eastern boundary of Rainier.

Long story short - I traveled from Tipsoo to Sunrise, and after finding that Sunrise didn't have any fall colors from berries, I turned around and headed back out the Sunrise entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park. Just about 1/2 mile from the entrance station, as I was driving, a large bird descended from the forest canopy and traveled along the road and in front of my car for perhaps 300 feet before disappearing into the canopy. I was driving, so I couldn't quite tell what type of bird it was. I thought perhaps a Perigrine falcon. I continued driving, carefully noting the pattern of the trees in the rear view mirror, until I could find a turnaround about 1/2 mile down the road (at the entrance station). I headed back up the road to where I'd seen the owl, and parked my car. I quickly grabbed my Canon 7D which already had the 300mm f/2.8 ("big") lens on it, added a 2x teleextender, and mounted it on my monopod and started walking along the road.

Fairly quickly, I "spotted" the large bird - an owl, about 50 feet off the ground in the branches of a tree. He quickly alerted to my presence, and soon flew another 300 feet away - but this time, I saw where he landed. I tried to get a shot of him, but quickly realized that I had too much telephoto with the teleextender, and it was dark-dark-dark, so I took off the telextender and boosted the ISO (sensitivity), and checked to see that I was in the right focus mode and multiple frame mode. I set the camera to f/2.8 and shot a few images before the bird flew on. I continued following, and this time boosted the ISO to 2000, since he was quick and it was dark. I walked towards him - or rather walked slowly past him, being careful not to look directly at him. I managed to get closer, and took a few more shots through the twigs around him.

Fearing he would soon take flight, I moved sideways a bit more to give me a clear shot of the bird, and quickly fired off another dozen or so images. I have many like this with the owl's head in different positions. Most came out quite sharp.

Honestly, I wish I'd seen the branch behind the owl's head and moved a bit - but I was pretty constrained shooting through twigs in the foreground. I'm not sure I could have changed my position.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used in electronic, print, or any other form, without advance permission from Richard Mitchell.

Richard Mitchell Touching Light Photography

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