Barred Owls -- Strix varia
In my woods. Indianapolis, Marion County, IN.
After being away from posting photos on Flickr and commenting on those of my Flickr friends for a solid six months, it’s a bit difficult for me to know how to re-engage. I’ll begin by saying that I stepped away for a while in order to more completely focus on getting some chores done that seemed to be piling up endlessly without any degree of attention that would result in the “to do” list getting any shorter. My plan was to step away completely from Flickr and some other things in order to focus on getting some of those neglected tasks done. I can report some success with that, but the results are not as complete as I had hoped.
To those who have wondered, my health was not involved in my time away in any significant way except that part way through my time off I developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and that did put a damper on my outdoor activities for a while right during the time when spring was really coming in and I was eager to get outside and enjoy it. Thankfully, the foot is much improved and I’m able to enjoy getting out into some of my favorite places again.
During the six-month time off, I did far less photography than normal, although I do have a backlog of photos that I will be rolling out in the weeks ahead. There is far less wildflower photography than normal. Reasons for that include that spring came very early due to a mild winter and a warm, wet spring which seemed to confuse the wildflowers greatly. Flower phenology has been way off course the entire year so far with flowers coming into bloom two weeks or more ahead of more average bloom times. Additionally, many species simply have not been as abundant as usual. Between those two circumstances, I'd go out expecting to photograph certain flowers and find that they were already done flowering for the year.
There were two situations that provided me with plenty of pleasant distractions that happened right on our little-over-one-acre lot in the city. We had nesting barred owls and nesting pileated woodpeckers on our property. Both had challenging physical circumstances that made photography difficult, but both eventually led to some nice photo results. I have lots of photos of both the owls and the woodpeckers, and I will probably be posting more than you care to see that will include some of the not-so-good shots, some mediocre ones and some of the good ones.
The photo posted here nicely shows the challenging circumstances related to trying to photograph the owls near the nest site. For at least the third time in 8 or 10 years, barred owls have nested in the broken off top of a large beech tree in our woods. The nest site is approximately 45 feet up, and when the female is sitting on eggs and until the youngsters begin to climb around out of the nest at about a month old, they are completely out of sight. The comings and goings of the adults during incubation and even when the young are still in the nest cavity are very discrete and their activities are extremely difficult to observe.
Note from this photo that small branches are all over the place up in the treetop so getting a “clean” shot without branches in the way is impossible. Of course, small birds know that the owls are up there and once in a while a group of them would take time to fuss and harass them for a while. More concerning to the owls, I’m sure, is that crows knew they were there, too, and came by a few times a day to harass the incubating female or the owlets. During those times, one of the adult owls remained very close to the nest. I’m sure the crows would not hesitate to eat the eggs or kill and eat young owlets. The nest cavity is open topped (open to the sky) and located immediately to the right of where the branch the owls are sitting on meets the large, vertical tree trunk. I took this photo from the roof of my house two or three days before the owlets left the nest tree.
Barred Owls -- Strix varia
In my woods. Indianapolis, Marion County, IN.
After being away from posting photos on Flickr and commenting on those of my Flickr friends for a solid six months, it’s a bit difficult for me to know how to re-engage. I’ll begin by saying that I stepped away for a while in order to more completely focus on getting some chores done that seemed to be piling up endlessly without any degree of attention that would result in the “to do” list getting any shorter. My plan was to step away completely from Flickr and some other things in order to focus on getting some of those neglected tasks done. I can report some success with that, but the results are not as complete as I had hoped.
To those who have wondered, my health was not involved in my time away in any significant way except that part way through my time off I developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and that did put a damper on my outdoor activities for a while right during the time when spring was really coming in and I was eager to get outside and enjoy it. Thankfully, the foot is much improved and I’m able to enjoy getting out into some of my favorite places again.
During the six-month time off, I did far less photography than normal, although I do have a backlog of photos that I will be rolling out in the weeks ahead. There is far less wildflower photography than normal. Reasons for that include that spring came very early due to a mild winter and a warm, wet spring which seemed to confuse the wildflowers greatly. Flower phenology has been way off course the entire year so far with flowers coming into bloom two weeks or more ahead of more average bloom times. Additionally, many species simply have not been as abundant as usual. Between those two circumstances, I'd go out expecting to photograph certain flowers and find that they were already done flowering for the year.
There were two situations that provided me with plenty of pleasant distractions that happened right on our little-over-one-acre lot in the city. We had nesting barred owls and nesting pileated woodpeckers on our property. Both had challenging physical circumstances that made photography difficult, but both eventually led to some nice photo results. I have lots of photos of both the owls and the woodpeckers, and I will probably be posting more than you care to see that will include some of the not-so-good shots, some mediocre ones and some of the good ones.
The photo posted here nicely shows the challenging circumstances related to trying to photograph the owls near the nest site. For at least the third time in 8 or 10 years, barred owls have nested in the broken off top of a large beech tree in our woods. The nest site is approximately 45 feet up, and when the female is sitting on eggs and until the youngsters begin to climb around out of the nest at about a month old, they are completely out of sight. The comings and goings of the adults during incubation and even when the young are still in the nest cavity are very discrete and their activities are extremely difficult to observe.
Note from this photo that small branches are all over the place up in the treetop so getting a “clean” shot without branches in the way is impossible. Of course, small birds know that the owls are up there and once in a while a group of them would take time to fuss and harass them for a while. More concerning to the owls, I’m sure, is that crows knew they were there, too, and came by a few times a day to harass the incubating female or the owlets. During those times, one of the adult owls remained very close to the nest. I’m sure the crows would not hesitate to eat the eggs or kill and eat young owlets. The nest cavity is open topped (open to the sky) and located immediately to the right of where the branch the owls are sitting on meets the large, vertical tree trunk. I took this photo from the roof of my house two or three days before the owlets left the nest tree.