This Short-eared Owl was sitting on the ground. It started walking through the grass, stalking like a cat would. It went quite a distance. When it stopped, it saw/heard its prey and leaped like a cat pouncing on a Townsend's Vole. It wasn't hungry, so it cached its prey in higher grass. Then it immediately started hunting again, just like before. Within 4 minutes, it had caught another vole and proceeded to cache it too.
The plus is my wood carved Northern Hawk Owl. Images 10 and 11 had their background replaced with the background that I had photographed in the real bird image,12, which was my inspiration. The carving depicts the owl just landing, head up hunting and acquiring balance on the thin tree top.
Rex
1
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens725mmf/9.01/3200s500 ISO-1.3 EV
2 Creeping along.
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens587mmf/9.01/2500s400 ISO-1.3 EV
3
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens725mmf/9.01/3200s500 ISO-1.3 EV
4 The leap.
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens725mmf/9.01/4000s800 ISO-1.3 EV
5
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens679mmf/9.01/4000s800 ISO-1.3 EV
6 Success
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens690mmf/9.01/5000s1000 ISO-1.3 EV
7
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens694mmf/9.01/5000s800 ISO-1.3 EV
8 Time for another
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter lens664mmf/9.01/3200s500 ISO-1.3 EV
9 Northern Hawk Owl
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens404mmf/6.31/40s100 ISO-1.3 EV
10 Replaced bg.
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens338mmf/7.11/40s100 ISO-2.0 EV
11 Replaced bg.
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/7.11/40s100 ISO-2.0 EV
12 The real bird relaxed on the branch
Canon EOS 7D Mark IIEF300mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x III lens420mmf/6.31/2000s1250 ISO0.0 EV
You captured the essence of the hunt amazingly well, and your carved owl would prolly scare the birds from bombing our cars way better than my plastic owl, heh. Great work!
Eric
beautiful images and carving, Rex. When raptors actually walk, they often remind me of the creatures in Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and your owl is no exception