I have a lot of bird pictures I really like, but to be quite honest, the next couple are definitely in my group of favorites. It is not so much the quality, lighting, pose etc. as much as it is the amount of things that fell into place in order to actually be able to take this shot. First off, Linda and I were heading out one morning to check out the Peoria Zoo and thus had both our good cameras with us. It was a fairly nice sunny day so we dropped the top on the convertible which allowed me to take in the scenery as we were passing our favorite park just down the street from us. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that a large object was sitting in the branches of a dead tree (in a yard across the road from the park). I had Linda slow down allowing me to make out that it was this sitting in the tree:
The best I can tell, it is a Barred Owl which according to my guide can be active into midmorning. We always hear these birds hooting at night, but rarely have we seen one out in the morning sun. Unfortunately, I had to crop it a little tight to block out some unappealing background. I prefer to give my birds some room to move in the frame, but technically he is facing backwards to me so he does have room to escape out the left side. Although this was a pretty close encounter, Linda and I have had two other experiences. One was at our old house while walking along a trail in the woods. We startled a huge owl that literally dive bombed us before getting enough uplift under the slowly unfurling wings enabling it to lift into the sky. That one made our hearts skip a beat, but the other one just about killed us. We were heading home late one night in my wife’s Wrangler. As we came down a hill, there was a large object in the road. Although there are conflicting reports on what actually occurred next, the consensus is my description is the accurate one. For some reason my wife either did not see the LARGE OWL in the middle of the road or had some owl angst from a childhood experience and thus decided not to hit the brakes (she claims she was preventing a rollover due to the top heavy Wrangler). The owl unfurled its wings and began the slow process of lifting into the air. Let’s stress the word slow in relationship to the speed we were traveling. The next thing I see is a full window of owl feathers making an ugly smack sound. Since the Wrangler has a flat windshield, my guess is that owl is toast. For my own since of tranquility, I chose not to look back and just assumed the plumage cushioned the blow allowing it to survive the horrific event. I keep reminding her of this night every chance I get and threatened to paint a silhouette of an owl on her vehicles next to the hundreds of other wildlife she has run down in their prime.
Oh, the other lucky factor is the owl gave me just enough time to get one still shot before he assessed the situation and headed off. I did get one pretty cool flight shot but lost him in the zoom lens as he turned into the woods.
Again, so many things had to come together to get these two pictures. If I get a chance I might post another one of my favorite bird shots I submitted to the State Fair photography exhibit. I am a little hesitant to post our best pictures on the web yet, but I am looking into some watermarking or labeling to give me a little more piece of mind. I enjoying sharing, but I have been getting some stories from my fellow photographers that are concerning me.
Hoping to have more owls to share in the future!
To complete this month’s quota, I figured I would mention I recently earned another medal for my running collection. I basically train year round for one key race a year and that race is the Bix7 held in Davenport Iowa. For those who have never experienced it, the event is 7 miles (actually 2 miles if you choose to do the QuickBix) in some difficult hills. The first 7/10ths of the mile is basically straight up followed by ~2 miles down and then the smaller but definitely harder hill short of the turnaround and then reversed. This year I finally lined up at the start without much injury for a change and that coupled with favorable start temperature led to a P.R. for me. Usually the temperature and humidity are through the roof due to the late July start, but thanks to Global Warming (smirk) we starting the morning at 57 degrees (yes, I was shivering when I got out of the car) and warmed up to around 87 by mid race. I’ve ran it in the past over 90 with 23 people going to the hospital that year.
It is very apparent that I spend waay too much time at Target or there is just waay to much stuff to be observed there. I think this is like my third post based on things that I have seen there and thought was interesting. This particular incident occurred at the checkout lane a few days ago. While we were completing our purchase there, something on the electronic register display caught my eye. On the lower left hand of the LCD panel there was a section labeled as Last 10 Ratings (or something very close to that heading, I forgot to write down the actual words). Underneath that label was a series of 10 letters which I am guessing where the results of the last 10 assessments. In this particular situation there were only the letters G and R. There were definitely more R’s than G’s, but there was absolutely no legend for what they actually meant. If it was important enough to have it visible to the customer, you would think there would be some explanation for the values provided. I decided not to question the clerk on the chance the ratings she was getting were not flattering. The trip home was spent pondering the potential rating options:
Life Intrigued 