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.