Western Screech-Owl

Yesterday, I saw my first screech-owl! I’d love to say I discovered it on my own, but I was working with some guidance from another photographer. It took me a long time to find the specific tree I was looking for, though, and even then, there was no sign of the owl. I could see the cavity where it seemed to live, but I had no idea if it was sleeping inside, out hunting, or just gone from the area. Eventually, I decided to come back later in the day.

I returned to the tree late in the afternoon. The owl wasn’t visible, but my bigger problem was the endless hikers asking me why I was staring at a tree. As time wore on, it got colder, and the light was rapidly disappearing. I’d been there for almost two hours when something gray appeared in the cavity. I squinted through the viewfinder, and there it was; the owl had woken up.

Over the next half hour, I took around 500 shots as the owl squinted and did very little, seemingly waking up slowly like the rest of us. Of those 500 images, I only achieved less than 10 usable ones. Light was the problem. It was getting dark, but the tree was already in the shade, so there wasn’t much light to work with. I kept my aperture as large as possible, compromised on shutter speed as far as possible, and managed a few where the ISO was low enough. I scaled back the zoom length to gain a little extra f-stop.

Looking at these photographs, I’m delighted to have seen a western screech-owl in the wild and created some images I like. However, problem-solving with the camera and navigating difficult conditions was my proudest achievement.