Short Eared Owl Portrait

Finally digging into some of the owl pictures Jenaya, Josiah and I captured on our trip to British Columbia last month. I'm not sure this is my favourite or the best, as I only opened one folder of images so far, but I do like the soft, warm light and gorgeous character to the perch this owl chose.

The three of us noticed this owl hunting the driftwood and tall grasses along the ocean shoreline and headed over with our gear. By the time we got there, the owl was taking a break from hunting and was perched on a very cool stump wrapped in a heavy old fishing rope (some pics from this session coming I'm sure). Josiah and I were commenting that it gave us the best portrait session any owl of any species had ever given us, when it proceeded to head out for another hunt then choose the perch shown here for an even more extended session. I haven't checked the time stamps, but I'm guessing we photographed this owl on this stump for 20-30mins non-stop (literally from low sunlight through sunset to dusk). Jenaya's picture from a couple weeks ago is from this photo opp but a completely different take on it and a bit earlier with sunlight still hitting the owl.

Eventually the owl worked up a pellet and shortly thereafter was back into the air hunting as dusk turned to twilight.

This is cropped to about 75% of original--I have room on all four sides, though less on top. The bottom of the stump came toward me so moves out of my DOF range on the images I like the owl's pose best (I did shoot a variety of frames at different settings to get a range of options in this regard), so I chose this comp as the best overall option...but welcome your suggestions of course!

Have a look at the LARGER version if you're like me and need to soak in every bit of a good-looking owl!

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/4D IF-ED
ISO 1250
1/80sec @ f/5
-0.3 EV
Tripod mounted, Live view AF, cable release

Straight from RAW without adjustments to colour temp, very slight tweak to contrast, light round of NR, light dodging to balance subtle sidelight, cropped to app. 75% of original.