Great owl images and story, all without baiting :)

http://www.naturescapes.net/articles/te ... in-winter/


Robert King

Some good words and nice environmental & behavioural photos by Stuart McKay. Thanks for calling attention to the article; and it was even published here on NSN. Great Grays are truly inspiring creatures. I've been around them only on a couple of occasions, before I more or less gave up photographing birds.

I do really appreciate Stuart's closing words -- "The bottom line is having patience and respect for the animal you are photographing. With time and dedication, you can get those great shots." I find that patience, respect and dedication apply equally well to the other photography I mainly do now, such as landscape and travel. I'm never more personally satisfied than when I take my time to "sink into" a situation... and let it sink into me.

The more I try to be open to see and respond to a situation for whatever it offers, the more I will be able to photograph its unique, essential qualities. And hopefully the more others who may view my photographs will understand and value the subject, in turn. I'm still making my own creatively expressed art, stamping my personal visual style onto the photos I create, and so on. But for a lot of my work, I do hope viewers develop a sense of the value of the subject for itself, and not just look at my photograph of it.

It's a great article and I can easily appreciate the photographic work then went into obtaining the images.  The images have a good editorial feel to them and tell the story of the species nicely....as an aside, I would not care to have any of the images from the article framed and displayed in my house...like I would for this one for example....  http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums ... highlight=  not suprisingly to me at all, is that the owl photographed here was fed...

One of my owl galleries..... I visited a certain male Great Gray.....nine times in the area, with sightings and photography on seven occasions. I know it was a male ...because on one occasion, a large female swept in to the male's perch and chased him off into nearby woods. I spent long hours with the bird...often on snowshoes. Got to know its favorite perches, times of hunting, etc.
Never any harassment...no baiting at all !
I got the location from a member of our birding club....this , in winter 2013.

http://www.pbase.com/hootpix/my_privateggo

The owl inspired me to publish another one of my photo books :

http://www.blurb.com/books/4243462-adve ... orest-2013

Thanks !

Chuck.

Royce, your words follow, and they are a reflection of my own feelings.

"I do really appreciate Stuart's closing words -- "The bottom line is having patience and respect for the animal you are photographing. With time and dedication, you can get those great shots." I find that patience, respect and dedication apply equally well to the other photography I mainly do now, such as landscape and travel. I'm never more personally satisfied than when I take my time to "sink into" a situation... and let it sink into me. - See more at: http://www.naturescapes.net/forums/view ... zYEPn.dpuf"

Stuart McKay's is a beautiful story of a human having the patience to take the time to let the story tell itself.  His is a story of a love for nature.  The photo story will unfold for us, if we take the time.  And the deeper we go into a "shoot" the more unfolds for us.  

Today, I applied a strategy Stuart mentioned in his article.  Yesterday I discovered some American Robins staying at a crabapple tree in the cold and subsisting on these tiny apples.  It was a suburban setting in Portland, Maine, with considerable human and slow-car activity, so I thought I could casually walk by, stop and they would think nothing of it.  I even used the extra assurance of a right angle finder, so not to spook them.  I kept my face down and scanned the tree through the lens.   Nope.  In response to my figure, they had all silently flown from the tree and when they returned, they stayed on the back side, away from me.  I was dressed in every way for cold.  But I began thinking that it may take hours for them to work their way to the front of the tree.  And I still might not get any good shots.  I decided to not push it.  I decided to go home and come back later.   I was not done.  

After I left the tree, the gentleman who owns the tree called me, telling me that the robins were there and that I should come over.  He did not know that I had just been there and left.     

So I decided to return right then.  As I slowly drove my truck by the tree, I recalled Stuart McKay's words about shooting from his vehicle.  It dawned on me to try using my vehicle as a "blind".  Sure, I had used the vehicle years before as a blind but I honestly did not expect such a dramatic difference with these robins.  The robins filled the tree.  I slowly positioned my truck to allow me to shoot from the open window.  Sure enough, the robins acted just as if I was not there at all.  Although my window was down, and they clearly saw me looking up at them, they were not intimidated this time.  By staying in my vehicle I got a lot of shots and some of the robins eventually flew down from the tree and onto the snow bank within a few feet of me.  Boy, was I thankful!   

From now on, I am going to go back to using my vehicle more often when it is appropriate.

If you click onto the link below, you will instantly see the best robin shot of this shoot I just described (so far; i.e. I am going back for more fun!.  It's a beauty!  :)  It will be my lead photo for a while now.


http://robertkingimages.smugmug.com



Thanks to all

Robert

What I miss most about seeing great gray owls in person is the "head first" dive. That was a common sight back in 2004 when few people were baiting them. Nowadays it's mostly seeing the owl gliding in instead of the vertical dive. Just something I've noticed.

My good friend Kim Steininger won wildlife photographer of the year with this shot:

http://www.nwf.org/news-and-magazines/n ... ntest.aspx

Most would surmise bait was used, but in fact there was no bait. I know because I was standing right next to her when she got the shot. I got the shot also, but with just that little bit of offset of my lens from hers you could see in my images the owl was looking off ever so slightly from dead center.

So one can get award winning shots without bait. The owl actually flew over her head and hovered a moment. Maybe two feet at most above her. We both were froze in astonishment. We think there was something about her hat that got the owl interested. we were about a football field when he started coming straight at us and then not diving on something as I was thinking he was going to do he kept winging a straight on trajectory. At that point it was like shooting ducks in a barrel.

But I feel most will get more out of picture taking by spending time with their subjects. After and hour or two they'll start ignoring one and there ya go. And serendipitously they will do things at times that result in great imagery that one would not have even contemplated beforehand in a planned shot.

If one believes life is in the journey more then the destination, it all falls into place how and what one should do as far as baiting.

Paul

Robert couldn't find the Robin pic but thoroughly enjoyed your old family pics!!


Paul