Returning to the Owl

We've had quite a spate of unusual non-rain weather here in December.  I have tried to take advantage of the pleasant conditions to get out into the woods and fields and play with the new camera and incredibly expensive, heavy-ass lens I purchased back in August.  And while I have managed to conquer my fear of the thing to a certain extent, the wildlife has been less than cooperative.

Two trips to the island yielded not one decent photo op for any animal or bird.  I didn't even see anything interesting that I wasn't close enough to get a decent picture of.  A few attempted birds-in-flight shots resulted in images not much different than fly-by's I had gotten with the old D40 and my screwed up zoom lens. 

Then there was yesterday. 

I have been trying to take advantage of the weather and make sure to get the dog out for a long walk and some exercise every day.  Which has worked pretty well for about a week.  But with the days of our dry spell (and decent picture-taking weather) waning--it's supposed to start raining tomorrow--and so few daylight hours available these days, I decided to try to combine the dog walk and the photo walk. 

Needless to say, this did not work out well at all.  My ADD dog is not one to just walk quietly and obediently by my side while I enjoy the weather and scan the fields, creeks and streams for wildlife.  She lags behind, she pulls ahead, she glues herself to every smear of bird poop on the pavement (bird poop is one of her preferred delicacies...)  My constant verbal stream of "No!  Get over here!  Drop!  Are you pulling?" is not at all a good way to sneak up on a photo op.  If there was any wildlife around, it heard us coming and headed for cover long before we got near.  It was a pleasant enough walk, but it was all about the dog...as she intended.

After an adequately long dog walk, I herded her back into her crate in the back of the van, and drove around my "Scappoose back-country" route, where I usually have some luck spotting raptors, egrets, or at least blue herons this time of year.  Came up empty again. Bah! 

I decided to take one more pass down the dike road, and that was when I finally spotted the unmistakable triangular shape of an owl silhouetted against the fading light of the rapidly setting sun.  I pulled a u-ie and made another pass...yep, still there.  Turned into the trail parking lot and drove as far in as I could, then got out and walked the rest of the way to the little stand of trees where I thought I had seen that telltale shape. 

And, by golly, there she was.  Though I could see nothing but a dark, owl-shaped thing sitting on a branch up close to the trunk of the tree, I knew what it was. 

I had a brief, one-sided conversation with the shape, then asked, "If I go back and get my camera, will you still be there?"  I did, and she was.

I fiddled with the camera enough to get some pretty bad pictures that were little more than proof that I had indeed encountered an owl.  Cranked the ISO up to 1250, and slowed the shutter to 1/40 second.  At that shutter speed, there was no possibility of getting a crisp image without a tripod (and I'm too impatient to drag that tripod around and set it up, even when I really should) not to mention that I had to use manual focus because auto-focus kept homing in on the branches in front of her face...and I couldn't really SEE what I was trying to focus on.  The fact that I got shitty images that were still unmistakably of an owl was a miracle in itself, considering the conditions.

 

Then I saw this, about eight feet below her perch

 

 

 and I was pretty sure I knew why Ms Owl was hanging out where she was.    

But what is really cool is that there is a second half to this story.

This afternoon, I decided to head out to the same location, this time to see if I could approach the tree from the other side.  The trees border on a large open field owned by the local nursery stock conglomerate.  They don't build a lot of fences around their property, so I was hoping I could walk out on one of their dirt truck tracks to the "front" side of the owl tree.  I parked the van on the side of the road, identified the grove of trees where I believed I had seen the owl.  I didn't take my camera, because it's heavy and awkward and the mud was slippery and I didn't want to take the chance of falling on my ass and tossing my $2.5k camera rig in the air while I was at it.  And, truthfully, I wasn't expecting to see anything photo-worthy.   

I slogged through the field to where I could see the nest.  And I do mean slogged.  Even though it hasn't rained in a couple of weeks, I had to wade through puddles, and picked up a coating of at least two inches of mud from about mid-foot down, on my hundred-dollar boots that are NOT trail boots.  Finally, I saw the nest. 

AND...the owl.  Sitting almost exactly where she had been the night before.

And I was camera-less.  Of course.

I spoke to the owl for a bit, and then I left...I didn't want to annoy her too much.  And I was NOT going to wade back to the car, grab my giant, heavy-ass camera, and slog all the way back.  My clothing/footwear was not adequate to that task.

But I DID go back to where I had parked the car the previous night, grabbed my camera and headed out (on the blacktop trail more suited to my footwear) to see what kind of daylight images I could get of my little friend.   

   

For the first time, I went back to a location where I'd met an owl, and it was there again.  Score!  I feel like I've performed some kind of photographer's rite of passage:  You gotta know where to find them, and you gotta be able to go back there and find them again.

Yay me!

Oh...and I have figured out that the new camera/lens combination takes hella pictures, even now, when I have NO idea what the fuck I'm doing.  I can only imagine what kind of results I'll get when I actually learn their proper operation!