There is no universe in which I make a credible wildlife photographer. I don’t have the gear. I don’t have the requisite knowledge. And maybe most importantly, I don’t have the patience. Even so, every now and again the photography gods favour me, as they did when I visited friends at their cottage on Bob Lake in Ontario’s Haliburton Highlands. This, my friends, is a barred owl (Strix varia).
Looking through my archives, I see I have dozens of photos of this owl, all with blurred twigs transecting the body or obscuring an eye. The owl would perch on a branch for a while, then swoop to a branch on another tree. I followed it all the way down the long lane to the property where we were staying until, at last, it landed on a branch with an unobstructed view from my position. As you can probably tell, the owl knew I was following it. However, it was high enough and far enough from me that it could safely discount my presence as a threat. It sits at the top of its local food chain and, with the exception of photographers, humans leave it pretty much alone.
I shot both these photos using a Canon 70-200 mm lens. With the image above, I used a 2x extender, giving it an effective focal length of 400 mm. Unfortunately, a 2x extender cuts the speed in half which makes it harder to capture anything in motion. That (and my lack of patience) explains why I don’t have any photos of the bird in flight.
