A Gray Morph Screech Owl - Belmont, MA

 

I've spent a few evenings since my last screech owl post at the red screech owl in Framingham. I love photographing it, but I always get the same blurry, dim, photo (even at a very slow shutter speed, and using a tripod and timed shutter) The reason it was hard to get high quality photos of the red screech owl is that it was not used to humans at all. The second it saw a person during the day, it would disappear into it's hole. I was very exited to get the location of a second screech owl, living in Belmont, MA. I drove there on the 25th, and pulled up. I quickly found the sawed off, hollow branch it had been seen in before. No owl, but there was a bit of fluff blowing in the wind, stuck to the end of the limb.

A nearby elementary school was getting dismissed at this point, and cars lined the sides of the road, and the kids walking to there car were making noise, which I think was keeping the owl down in it's hole, out of sight. I drove to fresh pond to see if there was any action over there, but there wasn't. I decided to come back after about 45 minutes, and instantly noticed a light shape in the previously dark hole...

I parked again, and snuck over, assuming it would be just as skittish as the owl in Framingham, but it didn't even open it's eyes. I stood on the sidewalk, practically right underneath it, and took like 50 shots of it sleeping. Here are a few of the sharpest ones...

It was a completely different experience shooting the owl in Belmont than the one in Framingham. I didn't have to set up a tripod, use long exposures, or do any of the things that make screech owl photography so difficult. I went home super early, trying to avoid a snowstorm that never came.