Great Horned Owl, Dubuque, Iowa ------------------
Are you tired of seeing photos here in my blog taken in the wetlands along the Mississippi River lately? Well, today I have something different for you. Friends who follow my blog since several years know that at this time of the year I have reported about the breeding efforts of a pair Great Horned Owls down at the Mississippi not very far from home.
The bad news is, it isn’t happen this year. Great Horned Owls don’t really build their own nest but take possession of an old nest instead and maybe move a few sticks around. In this matter it was the nest of a Bald Eagle that the owl used for five years in a row. Well, rain, snow, and in particular wind have finally succeeded and the nest had fallen apart after the last breeding season. There are still a few branches and sticks up in the tree but it isn’t big enough to be the place for another generation of Great Horned Owls.
And here comes the good news. Thanks to a couple photography friends I learned about two other locations around Dubuque, Iowa with an active nest site. One is in a small cave and it isn’t easy to see mother owl back on the nest. I used the flash to throw some light into the hole but this wasn’t enough to make a difference, at least from what I saw on the display of the camera back. The solution for this photo was to expose all the way to the right of the histogram, but still making sure the surrounding rocks were not blown out. It is amazing how much dynamic range today’s cameras are able to capture and the RAW files can hold. Later at home in Adobe Lightroom I lowered the exposure of the rocks and lifted the shadows of the cave locally. And this revealed some detail inside the cave. I don’t know if there is an owlet deeper in the nest but will hopefully find out as time progresses.
Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head, Nikon SB 800 speed light, MAGMOD MagBeam flash extender, @ 600 mm, 1/80s, f/6.3, ISO 400,