Flight photo: fail again

What can I say, I had to have 1600 ISO and 1/15" for the camera to even see well enough to focus. I could tell for quite a while he was thinking of flying off, so I had time to back off on the zoom and hit the shutter at exactly the right time, and I still get nothing. Just not enough light. I'll try it again tomorrow earlier in the day, but I'm not optimistic.

But at least this one turned out.


You can totally see the zygodactyl feet.


And I got a LOLZ out of it, too. And I misspelled the LOLZ misspellings. I must have been tired.

Ironically...

Going back over the older photos, I'm looking at "Threatening Baby" threatening me, and...


it's actually Glaring Baby. See, they're named after this time on July 6 that one threatened me and one glared at me, but actually Glaring Baby is the one who threatened me, and Threatening Baby is the one who glared at me.

Oddly, Glaring Baby also seems to have been the bigger one of the two all along. I was hoping this might be a clue as to sex, but no, there is no sexual dimorphism in great horned owls. Sibley is also not specific as to how far these guys disperse. He does say that great horned owls are monogamous, paired for life, and maintain the same territory from year to year, so hopefully next year I get to do this all over again.

Lift off!

This is an owl photo. Specifically, it's the branches swishing after an owl jumped off them, and me trying to track the owl with the camera, all happening in 1600 ISO at 22:16. That's why there is no physical owl in the photo - just the spirit of owl.

What happened is, I went walking without Spy Camera tonight, because it looked like rain, and indeed some small amount of rain fell. And as I was walking through the owl habitat, which is getting larger all the time as the babies roam further and further, I saw ahead of me, one of the babies flying through the trees. At that point it didn't matter that I didn't have the camera, because I wouldn't have caught him on the wing anyway, but then of course I had to follow him.

I assumed right off the bat that this would be Glaring Baby, because I haven't seen or heard any sign of the others lately, not even Threatening Baby. Actually, I haven't had even a suspected sighting of Threatening Baby since July 25. Anyway, I'm walking along a part of the trail I never go, following the owl's calls, and I misjudged the direction the calls were coming from enough that I didn't see the owl before he saw me. He was sitting on a big pile of dead wood on the ground, and I inadvertently got close enough to him that he found it necessary to threaten me with some beak snaps. This was more evidence, in my opinion, of his being Glaring Baby, because Glaring Baby is most familiar with me, and any other owl would have taken off much sooner. So at that point I was so close to him that it was really too bad I didn't have the camera, plus, I couldn't be 100% sure it was Glaring Baby without a photo. It looked like him, because he has a rounder head with less pronounced horns than Threatening Baby, but then again, they raise their horns when they want to go cryptic, so it might be just a matter of Threatening Baby being less tame than Glaring Baby, and therefore trying to make himself cryptic when I'm around. So maybe Threatening Baby doesn't really have more pronounced horns than Glaring Baby.

Whoever it was, he flew off and perched in a tree nearby; not far from me, just higher up. Again, I would expect this from Glaring Baby more than any other owl, but still, without a photo, I couldn't be sure. So, I walked home as fast as I could, grabbed the camera and the car, and drove back, and when I got back he was still up a tree, but not very high, and he let me get closer to him than I think I've ever been, thusly:


This might not look any closer to you than usual, but it's only in 19X zoom. Seriously. And again this might not mean anything to you, but usually I shoot him in 31X or 38X zoom, so twice the magnification. This is also in 1600 ISO and overexposed, if you're wondering, because by then it was 22:15 and the light wasn't in my favour either. So remarkably sharp, under the circumstances, and I love how you can see the colour of his feathers, light tan and black like a stuffed tiger. And as you can see, fairly rounded head with only a suggestion of horns.

That being said, I didn't get a whole lot of photos before he flew off to a higher branch, and this is the best of them, so I still wasn't sure. Luckily, I have those reference photos from July 25 where I had both babies at the same time, so I know exactly which is which. Thusly:

This is Glaring Baby:


And this is Threatening Baby:


See the difference?

Ok, I'll tell you. If you look closely at the black markings on their faces, Threatening Baby has black almost continuously from his beak right to his eyes, and from his eyes to the arcs around his face, and also a kind of tear-drop below the eye like his mascara is running. Glaring Baby has a lot less black on his face, with a clear break between the nose and the eyes, and between the eyes and the arcs around the face, and less black under the eyes as well. And again, Threatening Baby has pronounced horns and is trying to make himself cryptic, which is why he looks so narrow, whereas Glaring Baby has almost no horns and is not trying to be cryptic, so he looks fluffy.

So which one is in today's photo?


Yay verily, that is Glaring Baby. He has a pronounced break between the black feathers around the nose and around the eyes, around the eyes and around the face, and no runny-mascara look under the eyes; also tiny horns, and not trying to be cryptic.

So there you have it... Glaring Baby's airborne now. He's still calling his parents to bring him food all the time, but I haven't seen any sign of the parents since July 25 either. It kinda looks like everyone left and abandonned him, but since he's still alive, either they're still feeding him unbeknownst to me, or he's figured out how to hunt. He looks perfectly healthy, anyway, and now that he can fly, the world is his oyster. Which is to say, he's probably going to disperse now, and once he leaves I'll never see him again. Which is really too bad because it's rather nice having an owl that I've known almost since he was an egg, and who's accustomed to me enough not to feel like he has to go cryptic whenever I'm around. It would have been wrong to bring him offerings of chicken to make him tamer, which is why I haven't, but I'm gonna miss him when he disperses.

More owl videos

These are from Tuesday evening, but for some reason I couldn't get Blogger to upload them before. Not a lot happening seeing as Glaring Baby still isn't airborne, but I like his/her facial expressions. Or lack there of, actually. Owls don't really have a lot of different facial expressions.

Anyway, like I was saying, s/he reminds me of me.

You're gonna have to fly some time, you know

Glaring Baby: still flightless, or else not the least bit scared of me. At least s/he seems to have all his flight feathers now so flight should be theoretically possible. I think he's just lazy, really.

Also, I notice he's hiding in the fireweeds, just like me. And we have the same engaging coutenance, too. He's like Mini Me.

(I had two videos to post but Blogger isn't having any of it. I'll try again later.)

Dear Town Council: I told you so

As I was saying, I was at Six Mile Beach yesterday digging sand for my planters, and I noticed a person who appeared to be engaged in bird watching. And she had a vehicle with Texas plates. So, I walked up to her and made some conversation, including where the good birding spots are. And it was really awesome because I know a lot of people, especially online, who watch birds at their bird feeders, but it's the first time I've ever been in the presence of a person who goes out of her way, like me, to look for birds. And it was also awesome because of the way she behaved, which was exactly like me.

For example, she looked at anything but me as we talked. Of course, because my face is the only place where there isn't gonna be a bird, so why look at me? Also, she frequently tuned out of the conversation or even walked away to look at a bird. Of course. I do that too, and people think I'm being rude, when the reality is, they're interrupting my hobby. From one birdwatcher to another, we both understand that conversation will keep, whereas a bird sighting won't. Also, she talked the same way I do, like "oh yeah, I already got that one." Like birds are trading cards. It's not that it isn't nice to see a bird you've seen before, but it's particularly nice to see one you hadn't "got" yet.

And also, she was looking for an owl. A great grey owl, specifically, of which we do have a resident one, though I haven't seen it recently. Because see, she's "not a taxidermist but it's similar", so she keeps her life list in her accounting software; and whatever "it" is that she does, the great grey owl is she only bird that she's "done" but she doesn't "have", and therefore, that's messing up her accounting. And this actually makes perfect sense to me. But the coolest thing about it is, she came here to H— looking for a great grey owl. Not that this is the only place she's visited looking for a great grey owl, but she's on a massive road trip to find a great grey owl and this is one place she came. She hasn't seen the inukshuk. She's never heard of the inukshuk. She doesn't give a Fig Newton about the inukshuk. She came here to see owls. Just like I said. Tourists come here to see owls, not the inukshuk. So don't make an arse of all of us sending that stupid postage stamp to Lonely Planet, m'kay? People come here for the owl watching. PROTECT THE OWL HABITAT. (Conveniently, owls have huge habitats and anything they eat must also be protected, so by protecting the owls, we'd be protecting pretty much everything else, too.)

I'd run for council if I didn't hate people so much.

Anyway, the owl watcher had to be somewhere at 18:20 and she was running late, so she had to go. I should have got her name so I could add her to my Facebook friends. It would be nice having a Facebook friend who's into the exact same form of birding that I am. She has tons of experience, too. She's been to Africa on a birdwatching expedition / conservation work tour. I bet she'd have awesome stories, if not photos. She had binoculars with her, not a camera, so she might be one of those people who would rather watch than take pictures.

Well, so long, bird watcher person. I hope you find a great grey owl.

Threatening Baby: moving up in the world

This is actually July 28 (Tuesday) at 21:46. Every time I see Threatening Baby he's higher up a tree, and there is no way he walked up there. I still haven't positively seen him on the wing, but he's clearly making progress with his flying.