Eastern Screech Owl

Today (Saturday) at the For-Mar Nature Preserve & Arboretum, the Wildlife Recovery Association paid a visit to show off some of their resident birds of prey.  The Nature Preserve often has events for a few hours on the weekends.  Great way to spend a few hours on a Saturday.

The WRA brought in four different owls, two falcons and some other 'peaceful' birds.

Part of the event was reviewing the mission of the WRA, and a bit of history of the birds on show.  The birds that were there would never go back in the wild.  The injuries that brought them to the WRA would never heal sufficiently to allow any chance of survival.  The critters in their care that will be rehabilitated to the wild will never be this close to humans.  Never thought about it before, but makes sense.

Aesthetically speaking, fun to see such magnificent creatures close up.  They catered to the kids a lot, most of the attendees were young accompanied by parents.  The birds were brought out to and through the audience.  Lots of phone close ups.  Great experience for kids.

Photographically speaking, the light was awful.  I'm recently used to wide open skies and subjects relatively far away.  This somewhat bit me as my initial aperture settings introduced a very shallow Depth of Field.  Unfortunately for the first bird to make an appearance, the Eastern Screech Owl, I was shooting f/3.5 for some of the early shots.  Nice bokeh, but something important was always out of focus.  At some point I figured it out.  Like I had to figure out the ISO.  I had a limit set for 200.  That worked for some of the shots outside of the pavilion.  Inside the pavilion, I had to bump that limit to 1000.  To be fair to me though, I figured that out before the birds took the stage.  

This is the first time I've seen owls up this close.  Awesome.

This first shot of the Eastern Screech Owl was making the rounds before the show started.  Always arrive early.  Lesson for life.

Eastern Screech Owl

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED

185 mm, 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 250 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

At least the eyes are in focus.

This next shot was taken in the pavilion.

Eastern Screech Owl

NIKON D850 Ver.1.20/NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED

200 mm, 1/125 sec, f/5.0, ISO 640 (AUTO)

EV 0, MANUAL Mode, Size FX

This shot is a prime candidate for a background replacement.  Something for the winter.  The change of aperture yielded an in-focus glove.

Great day.  More photos of adorable critters to follow.