Oh my goodness - I'm so far behind with blogging, it has got to the point that I don't know what to write about first. I'll probably try to post a few brief blogs over the next couple of weeks to catch up a bit, even if they are in no chronological (or any other) order.
Anyhow, for today, here are three pictures of barn owls photographed after dark back in September at the Des Ong hide in Leicestershire.
This was something I'd never experienced before — LED lights illuminating the perches. Just to be clear, these are wild birds. The owls didn't seem to mind at all, quite to the contrary. One point about the LEDs: they cycle up and down rapidly, so fast shutter speeds can give banding. We were advised to keep shutter speeds no faster than 1/125. This worked fine, although I had been worried about motion blur as the owls moved. In the event, using high-speed bursts (electronic shutter, silent mode) I got plenty of sharp shots.
The hide was very pleasant with comfortable seats. I used my own tripod/gimbal head, with my Sony A1 and 200-600mm lens poking through scrim netting. A really excellent experience.