Owl City*

White-Faced Scops Owl, originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

Back to my traditional fayre – a conventional photograph of a conventional creature, an owl, a White-Faced Scops Owl to be more precise. I’ve blogged about these birds before, how their moustache makes them look like Dr Zoidberg from Futurama (well, if you squint at them) but they are such an attractive looking bird, how can you resist photographing them.

This bird, for once, was not behind bars having been allowed to fly free in the Owls section of the Hawk Conservancy where each afternoon at around 3.30pm a demonstration is held with a number of the Owls, showing the birds in a more natural habitat. I haven’t attended any of these when I’m there as it’s usually too dark to get any good picture which, after all, is my prime directive (sorry, been listening to the Goldie Lookin’ Chains too much – warning: NSFW as they say ) whilst I’m there and so I’ve not seen the Scops Owl in flight before – with the combination of their looks and their diminutive size, they’re adorable.

There is one owl I would love to photograph in the wild, or even in captivity, the Northern Hawk-owl. Larger than the White Faced Scops owl, these birds as the name suggest can be found in Northern climes – one place that is good to photograph them specifically is Finland.. and they have been photographed there… a lot. They are often seen hunting for rodents under the snow and the contrast of their plumage with the white of the snow is spectacular. I guess I’d better start brushing up on my Finish (ha! I can only speak two languages.. English and Gibberish) “Missä ovat pohjoisen Hawk pöllö?”

Following on from yesterday’s delusional “Arty” blog, I have final confirmation that I am indeed an Artiste.. I now have an Apple MacBook Pro (Yes, Mark you read that right! Next I’ll be swapping out my Canon stuff for Ni*k*n 😉 ) sitting on my desk, though that’s all it’s doing for the moment.. sitting. In my defence I do also have a PC and an android tablet so all is not lost!

(* today’s music reference – Fireflies)

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