In April of 2019 while living in California, we decided to take a trip to a trip to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. While the parks were extremely fascinating and the landscape extremely dramatic, unfortunately we did not see a lot of wildlife in either of the parks. The National Parks may be the subject of separate posts, however, as they were spectacular in their own right.
Before going into Yosemite, we stayed in Merced, CA. While driving through Merced on the way to Yosemite, we saw a sign for the Merced National Wildlife Refuge; we made a note, that if we had time we might just drive by it again and see if we could find anything interesting. The day after going to Yosemite National Park, we were able to return to the Merced Refuge. Immediately upon entering, we found another photographer who was off to the side of the entrance photographing what looked to us, to be just a stand of trees.
We decided to pull over and ask what exactly she was photographing and she informed us that there was a Great Horned Owl with one or two owlets in a nest roughly 30 feet from the Refuge entrance drive. We got out, setup my tripod with camera and began scanning for the nest. I found the adult Great Horned Owl fairly quickly and started taking pictures, but the owlets were not visible. After a while, though the owlets began stirring and finally one and then both of them looked at me. My first thought was, Whoa Ugly! My second thought was, why can't both owlets stay still and let me photograph them? This wish was never really satisfied.
One of the better images I managed to capture is posted here. I am really glad my Cory and I made the effort to stop at the Merced Refuge, because this was the first and only time, so far, that I have had the fortune to photograph both an Owl and its owlets. We find that it is not always the large, well known, National Parks that yield the best photo opportunities, sometimes its the little known corners of the countryside or even in inner cities that provide the most unique and rewarding images.
Every time I look at this photo though I am still amazed at how something so unattractive looking could turn into such a beautiful bird of prey in adulthood.
コメント