Great Horned Owl — GHOW
Aside from Snowy Owls, I’ve seen just one owl in all my years of birding. And I wasn’t looking for one the 9th day of January 2015 as I walked along the all-purpose trail at Sandy Hook just heading north just beyond the parking lot for the camping area. I first saw the bird as it flew through the trees to my left on a heading that would take it across my path a few yards ahead of me. I was struck by how silently it flew.
There was no chance to catch the bird in flight, but to my utter delight it perched on a branch easily in my view. I had time to take just three photographs. Looking through the camera’s viewfinder, I could see little more than the outline of the bird. I had no idea which way it was looking. Happily, in the second shot, it was looking at me. Having taken that moment, the bird flew on away from me and hidden from the camera by the trees off to my right.
Great Horned Owl — GHOW
Aside from Snowy Owls, I’ve seen just one owl in all my years of birding. And I wasn’t looking for one the 9th day of January 2015 as I walked along the all-purpose trail at Sandy Hook just heading north just beyond the parking lot for the camping area. I first saw the bird as it flew through the trees to my left on a heading that would take it across my path a few yards ahead of me. I was struck by how silently it flew.
There was no chance to catch the bird in flight, but to my utter delight it perched on a branch easily in my view. I had time to take just three photographs. Looking through the camera’s viewfinder, I could see little more than the outline of the bird. I had no idea which way it was looking. Happily, in the second shot, it was looking at me. Having taken that moment, the bird flew on away from me and hidden from the camera by the trees off to my right.
Lightbox Gallery of Great Horned Owl photographs.
Back view of a Great Horned Owl that had just flown across my path to perch on this branch.
The bird immediately looked over its shoulder to check me out givng me the chance to capture its face.
This is a tighter crop of the previous image. The bird clearly decided I was a threat and it should move on.
This was the third shot taken in quick succession as the bird turned its head prior to flying off.
Pentax K-3 with 300 mm lens augmented by the 1.4x teleconverter, f/8 at 1/1000th second, iso 1,000. Post-processed using Adobe Lightroom.
This page last updated Feb 19, 2021.