Trogon Photo Tours

July 2012 - This newsletter shows photos from an afternoon of shooting near the Snake River Birds of Prey Area in Kuna, Idaho.  It discusses the decisions I made that day that resulted in the images I took, so it's more focused on field craft than technical discussions.

We have just moved from Washington state to Texas and on the way down we stayed with relatives who live near Kuna, Idaho and the Snake River Birds of Prey Area.  I knew an area, Kuna Mora road, that had produced good Burrowing Owl images for me and others in the past so I allocated 1 afternoon's shooting time to go down there.  My goal was to get some more good Burrowing Owl images.  However, when I arrived in the area about 6pm I couldn't locate the owls.  So I drove up and down the road scoping the area out.  To my delight there were a lot of raptors in the area. 

Swainson's Hawk - Kuna, Idaho, June 2012.  Canon 7D 500F4 manual exposure of 1/1600 F6.3, iso 400, handheld, about 90% of the original frame.  I drove down one of the dirt roads that leads east from Kuna Mora Road towards the Birds of Prey Area and near one hill there was a kettle of about 20 Swainson's Hawks riding the thermals.  I judged that if I climbed the small hill and sat down near the top of it, I might be able to get some eye level shots of them.  At 6pm the light was still somewhat harsh, but it was very cool to have these birds fly right past me as I sat near the crest of the hill.  I added 1 stop to the bright blue sky to get my manual exposure here.  I picked a little more than 1 stop down from wide open for my aperture because in my experience with hawks flying toward me I often need that much depth of field to get the head and most of the body sharp.  

Swainson's Hawk - Kuna, Idaho, June 2012.  Canon 7D, 500F4, 1/1600 F6.3, iso 400, manual exposure.  Although I was enjoying being up on the hill near to the birds I still wanted to get some Burrowing Owls so I went back to the car and drove around. There were dozens of Swainson's Hawks and American Kestrels in the area.  While there were lots of opportunities to photograph the hawks close up on fence posts, I focused on trying to get images of them on natural perches as I find the natural perches more attractive and I have seen so many images of this species on fence posts.  This bird was just taking off from sage.  While there were more birds and more photo opportunities on the paved Kuna Mora Road proper, I spent a lot of my time on the dirt roads that lead out from Kuna Mora Road with the idea that I was more likely to get birds on natural perches on these side roads.   

Short-eared Owl photographed at Kuna, Idaho June 2012.  Canon 7D, 500F4 at 1/640 F5.6, iso 500, full frame.  Photographed handheld from the driver's side out the passenger side window.  My strategy of taking the dirt side roads paid off when I found 4 Short-eared Owls hanging out near one of them.  I had gotten out of the car and gotten some decent flight shots but nothing special when I saw this bird perch down the road on a nice perch on the correct side of the road for lighting.  I got back in the car, rolled down the passenger side window and drove very slowly to where I could photograph it out the car window.  I was quite nervous I would spook the bird so I did everything very slowly, especially picking up the lens and moving the camera to my face so I could photograph him.  He stayed around but I quickly discovered that he had a badly damaged right eye which can be seen in this photograph and I would guess from the other photograph's I took that he probably could only see from his/her left eye.  

Short-eared Owl photographed at Kuna, Idaho, June 2012.  Canon 7D, 500F4 1/640 F5.6, iso 500, handheld  With the bird's damaged left eye, I concentrated on taking most of my photos when it turned it's head to the side so that only the left eye showed.  Although there's not direct eye contact here, this is my favorite image of the encounter which lasted 7 minutes before the bird took off.  In terms of iso selection I selected the highest iso which I think the 7D handles noise well at - iso 500.  This gave me enough shutter speed to make a sharp image while limiting the amount of noise.  If I had been trying to get a take off or flight shot here I would have either decreased my F-stop or had to increase my iso to get my shutter speed higher. 
 

Burrowing Owl photographed at Kuna, Idaho, June 2012.  Canon 7D 500F4 at 1/160 F5.6, iso 500, handheld.  I finally found the Burrowing Owls right at last light as I was headed home.   It wasn't the shot I had envisioned of this species but I was much happier to get some nice Short-eared Owl images as I had photographed Burrowing Owl many more times than Short-eared.  I will have to get out and spend some more time in this area in a future June as the raptor photo opportunities there can be amazing.