Every time we’ve driven into the nearby town of Horsham, we’ve noted the little tourism sign highlighting a bird of prey centre. We usually saw it when we were doing something, or on the way home from doing something, so never stopped in. Recently, however, my kid has been learning about owls in school, so it seemed like the ideal reason to finally pay it a visit.
This was also an opportunity to try out my ‘new’ “railway lens” in the field before pointing it at a train (‘new’ as I bought it secondhand). The Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 has a pretty dramatic zoom range, allowing me to get the best of both worlds when shooting.
We looked at a few birds in cages before eventually finding an enclosure that had them sitting on perches with nothing between us and them. With mostly static targets close by, I started with my normal zoom lens.
In this area, most of the birds had a nice red fence behind them, far enough back that there was some separation from subject and background.
Unfortunately this gorgeous Chilean blue eagle was in front of a dull black tarp.
Just outside of this little area was a little owl (yes, that’s actually what they’re called) in a pen with big eyes that I managed to capture.
We then went to the central area to watch a flying display. For this, I figured it would be best to use my big 100-500mm telephoto for some closeups. The display started with a barn owl.
Let’s talk briefly about presets. When editing these shots, I found a few presets in a Lightroom preset pack a bought that worked really well with certain shots. One seemed especially suited to this barn owl, that brought out both her eyes and the brown of her feathers, so I found myself using it for most of the shots of her.
This being a flying display, soon the owl was tempted off her pole and I could try capturing her in flight.
The display was a lot of hit and miss. For every reasonably sharp image you’re about to see, there were blurry shots, completely missed shots, and generally a lot of rubbish being thrown away.
In this shot, I got the trainer in the frame, but decided I liked how it came out.
When he landed on the post in the middle of the arena, he was backlit by a low winter sun, which looked wonderful.
More flying soon ensued, unfortunately a bit close to a not-particularly-visually-appealing fence.
At some points, she/he landed on the small fence separating the audience from the flying.
She was soon back up on her high perch, where I caught her about to take off.
As she approached her trainer, I got a slightly better framed bird-and-trainer shot, albeit without the bird’s face.
The barn owl was given a break, and a hawk was allowed out to play. She quickly sat on the backlit perch.
The preset I’ve used for this shot bring out the feathers of this bird – unfortunately it does bring out the orange of her tracking device too, although I don’t find it entirely displeasing.
Soon there was a flying shot.
She landed pretty close to us, so I could get a closeup.
Next up in the display was this snowy owl. Perhaps you can see from this shot, where she was already not keen in coming into the arena where she old be easily seen, that he had a bit of an attitude on this day.
After some repeated attempts at coaxing her into showing off by her trainer, she promptly flew off into a nearby field. So our first flying display of the day ended with the trainer turning on his tracker and going off to fetch her.
We then had some time to explore the other birds in their pens. I also had the time to finally try out the 28-300mm to help me focus through the fences. The first bird we saw was this owl with beautiful orange eyes (that I may have enhanced a bit with a preset).
As you can see, I didn’t quite eliminate the fences, but they’ve added a not-entirely-unpleasant blue tint to bits of the frame.
Apparently owls giving me evil looks was a little bit of a theme. This great horned owl had a similar opinion of me.
Although this eagle also gave me some funny looks, I managed to catch it whilst she wasn’t looking.
At some points, I tried using Lightroom’s AI reflection removal tool to see if it could eliminate the feint fences from the shots. Most of the time it didn’t really do anything. One time it worked like a charm. When I tried it on this photo, it managed to keep the fence but remove the bird completely. However I like the shot enough to live with the fence.
In some spots I was able to get close enough to the fence – with the subject far enough away from it – to essentially eliminate it completely, like with this other owl.
This was another shot where I couldn’t resist boosting the oranges and browns to bring out the owl’s eyes and plumage.
Next door were these little owls.
And next on from them was this grumpy fella.
We also saw the snowy owl, now safely returned to her pen, but not looking too happy about it.
And this owl with her beautifully detailed feathers.
Having walked in a circle around all of the pens, we returned to the area where the birds were in the open, as the assortment of animals had been changed up a little.
This kestrel was very confused by something.
The other grumpy-looking eagle was still there.
What really caught my eye though was this bald eagle. Yes, he was still in front of the largely unphotogenic black tarp, but with a bit of zoom, it added to the shot.
I might have gotten a little snap happy with him, and as so many shots came out looking fantastic in the edit, there are quite a few shots here too, and even more in the gallery at the end of this post.
I’m really pleased with the edit on these, because they came out of the camera so good they just needed a tweak of a few sliders (mainly the contrast) to make them pop.
With that, it was time to go back to the arena for the afternoon’s flying display. We would see a different assortment of birds this time, but having been round all of the pens, there would be.a few familiar faces, starting with this gorgeous orange-eyed owl.
I kept using the new “railway lens” for this show. Shooting the first display with my 100-500mm and its traditional twist-action zoom and then the second with the 28-300mm and its pump-action zoom gave me a good opportunity to compare them. I adapted to the pump-action zoom far quicker than I expected, and actually it’s quite a nice quick way to change the zoom when chasing something.
Again we were facing the sun for this display, but it meant when she landed this owl’s wings were beautifully backlit,
This backlit post was a lovely spot, especially with the processing I was doing.
I decided to take this shot and make it a bit more artsy, so I cropped it into portrait, and then tweaked it so it was all a contrasty monochrome, apart from the orange eyes. I bit cliched perhaps, but worth it on this occasion.
The owl did some flying back and forth, and I managed to pull off a few shots that were in focus.
She soon landed back on that wonderful backlit post.
The last shots I got of this owl were another dramatic takeoff.
Next up was this hawk.
By this point I was getting pretty practised at capturing them in flight. I don’t know if that means the 28-300mm is inherently better in this sort of environment compared to the 100-500mm (as it’s quicker to zoom and a faster lens generally, perhaps) or if I was just getting warmed up.
The grumpy eagle was up next, and didn’t look a whole lot happier for being outside and off a leash.
Luckily she also landed on the backlit post.
I only got one or two good shots of her in flight, perhaps undermining everything I said earlier about getting better.
Soon she was back on the post.
This display ended with another hawk of some kind. Further contradicting the idea I was getting better (or perhaps I was getting tired) I don;t came back with a few useable shots of this one.
With the display over, I ventured back to some of the other cages I’d not been to with my camera. I said hello to the cockatiel (they said hello back), but wanted to make sure I photographed the macaws.
Also back here were the pens holding the barn owls. Edited using the same preset as before, the resulting shots, frankly, shoot far above my actual talent.
I’ll admit part of my luck was the way I caught the fence I was shooting through – in these next few shots, it’s defocussed nicely, and looks like some deliberate lens flare.
(I’ve included a lesser-edited version of the shot above so you can see the impact of the edits).
And with that, it was time to go home.
This set is probably my best ever selection of wildlife shots. Some of that is in the quality of the images, and some is in the quality of the editing. Ultimately, I’m absolutely delighted with the results.
Partly to see if the @RobDoesTrains experiment was a one-off, I’ve also just set up @RobDoesWildlife to share nature shots, and started with the great barn owl shot to set it all up.
As ever, there are a few more shots in the gallery below – including a few comparisons of shots that haven’t been edited as heavily. You’ll have to let me know your thoughts.
Creative Splurges 