Again, wonderful pics. What is it about the eyes of a bird of prey that just stun you for a moment? I have always liked looking into the eyes of barred owls because of their all-dark appearance, but the contrast of that deep golden yellow against the white plumage....it's so striking. For the record, Vonyon, I have seldom been able to walk up on an owl in the woods. I usually don't even know they are around until they are already swooping away to put some distance between us. THe times I have been close to them are the ones where I sat very very still and called them in. The first time this happened to me it was a big shock.I was bent over at the waist walking through knee deep water and shuffling my feet slowly to see what was living in the leaf litter. I had on a camo jacket and my face was not turned up and I guess the owl did not recognize me as a human. I was still bent over, staring at the water when I saw its reflection swoop in low and glide to a branch about 15 feet over my head. It was all I could do not to snap erect in surprise. Sometimes when I am alone in the woods, I mumble to myself, other times I might whistle or hum a song. Sometimes I am totally silent, but my favorite thing is to try and mimic animal noises and that day I had been hooting like a barred owl off and on for a few minutes. Kinda like singing in your car or talking to yourself in the bread aisle--things you do when no one else is around. Only I wasn't alone there in the creek and it was a shock when the owl showed up. And there I was stuck like a bent hairpin. I knew I had to eventually stand up but I knew the owl would see and probably hear any twitch. Luckily, by watching its reflection I noticed that every once it a while it would swivel its head around to the east to look at other things, and I would wait for that one moment and then raise my upper body bit by bit back to an upright position. I think now they call this Pilates.....it took a while of start and stop but I finally made it, but I was still looking down at the water. I have heard that even if you are well hidden from an animal, if they see your eyes it's all over. I waited again for the right moment, and then finally lifted my head to look directly at the bird while it was again turned east. When it spun back around and down to check on this strange lumpy hooting thing in the creek we were finally looking directly at each other. I could not believe those huge dark eyes, not at all like GHO eyes. Look right through you. Its head shifted a bit, and I don't know if it was my eyes or maybe a subtle twitch on my part but it had had enough of me. It flapped maybe three times and then dropped to a low glide off through the birches. I have only been this close to owls in a normal setting maybe three other times, and all three were responding to calls. But ahead of my experience in the creek I never knew it could work like that.

We will look forward to seeing your pictures! Good Luck!

I love your birding equipment reviews! I also saw the spotting scope/cameras advertised in Wildird, but I've not yet taken the time to "scope out the scopes" to compare their photo quality with regular DSLRs. As expensive as lenses are, the scope/camera combo should save photographers thousands of dollars, if the quality is comparable.

Poor thing is probably starving - not many mice or voles in downtown Washington. Rats maybe, LOL. There has been an influx of Snowy Owls this winter - apparently all flying south in search of food. There were hundreds spotted here last month but there's not much food here for them in the winter so they have either flown away or died.