This is a unique picture of a special bird. I found this guy at a nest not a 1/2 mile from my home. Last year I found his nest by accident. As usual on a Saturday morning, I was out walking my dog in the desert. This time was different in that I had my camera with me. I was out searching for Black Tailed Jackrabbits. I was looking for one of those early morning images where the rabbit's ears are illuminated by a slow rising sun. So, I walked along the desert path looking towards the east hoping to see my subject. Well, I didn't find it. I walked without success and stopped when I spied an unusual dark bump amidst a slight depression in the sand. What was it? "It's a Burrowing Owl!" I put my dog--his name is Hooker if you didn't know--in a stay and scanned the bird. There were a two birds at the site. I didn't spend much time there to avoid spooking the birds with Hooker. Instead I retreated and came back later. This time there was only one bird. I figured later, the bird had departed for the season. The one that remained was incredibly shy. I couldn't take one image of him. Oh well... I'll wait until next year.

Well, this is next year. While not the most awesome bird image ever made, it shows the bird the way most people find him--hiding. In this case, I spent an hour approaching him in very small 2 foot increments. I only moved forward when it turned its head. This seemed to delay the typical flight instinct all wild animals have. This iamge was taken at my closest approach. Even then, a healthy crop was needed to eliminate distracting forground sand. I would've preferred to be closer but the circumstances--not willing to scare the bird--just didn't allow it. Maybe I'll try to get closer next time?

So, even though It took forever to take this image, I wasn't finished. Quite a bit of Photoshop work was needed to make this image the way you see here. I had to adjust the levels to increase the contrast a bit, and I saturated the eyes a fair bit to make them especially distinguished from the rest of the image. Overall the digital manipulation wasn't that difficult. The only difficulty was eventually deciding on what and how I was adjusting this particular image.

Please note, I had submitted this image on a web photography forum and was criticised because the bird's color departed too much from his images of Burrowing Owls. As well, the eyes were too dark for his tastes. I considered his comments for a long time and finally decided what I had done to this iamge was totally acceptable. First, the colors were close to what I had seen in the wild. While the eyes are slightly enhanced, the pigment is about right. Since becoming fairly adept with Photoshop, I've learned simply playing with the Levels tool can change the appearance of the colors even though I'm only changing the RGB tones. I'm increasing the contrast and that action tends to enhance the image's saturation which may make some people think the colors are kind of funny. I personnaly don't think it's any more wrong than slightly underexposing and image when shooting slide film. I considered my critism and found I really am doing things okay and within the scope of what's Nature Photography. It's not like I planted this bird where it was and proceeded to document this bird as a wild animal. No, all I did was take a completely wild situation and modify the image to match what I had seen. If you have any comments, please e-mail me because even though I may not change anything, I care to hear other people's opinions.

For your consideration.

Cheers

Tom