Two owls - one shot. Almost!

A Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) hunts from atop a kestrel nest box. Our team stopped to watch this box because we spotted a red morph Eastern Screech-Owl looking out of the hole. The owl popped back inside when we stopped, and while awaiting his reappearance the short-eared landed. What a shot that would have made, had the little owl looked back out of his hole with the other owl over its head! The short-ear was not hunting the screech owl - the box is just a convenient perch to look for voles and other small mammals - their stock in trade. The big owl up top would not even have been able to see the little one had he peered back out, due to the little roof overhang. As incredibly acute as owls' hearing is, I am sure the boxed owl knew something was atop his home, perhaps hence his reluctance to show himself. Screech-owls are normally not too shy towards humans, at least quiet ones watching from inside a vehicle from a respectable distance.

When I made this shot, it was well into dusk and light was scarce. The image parameters are f/5.6 (wide-open with the Canon 400mm DO II and 1.4x extender), 1/50, and a very high ISO of 12,800. When we left a few minutes later, it was too dark to shoot pictures and getting too dark to even see the screech-owl if he did reappear in the hole (which I am sure he did, eventually). Chandlersville Christmas Bird Count, Muskingum County, Ohio, yesterday.