Great Horned Owl Mobbed by Six Crows

Continuation of My Excellent Adventure in Ithaca, NY.

I miss living in the country, so when my friend Krissie and I woke last Saturday to the sound of coyotes howling in the mist surrounding Marie Read’s house, which she shares with her husband Peter Wrege (director of Elephant Listening Project at Cornell), I knew the familiar Ithaca charm was at work.

We swished talk of African elephants down with a smooth cup of Ethiopian Harar, then headed to Stewart Park to shoot birds (not THAT kind of shooting). We met Tina Phillips, Mike Powers, and Lang Elliott. How lucky were Mike, Tina, and I for an opportunity to shoot with two talented photographers!

Marie had thoroughly scoped out the park that week, keeping a close eye on the location and behavior of various birds such as Common Mergansers and nesting Great Horned Owls.  It was interesting to see how her mind works in the field, how subtle behavioral clues weave their way like a thread from her eyes to her brain and finally out her shutter finger. No doubt, this instinctual gift is what makes Marie well known for her lively action shots (such as these Common Mergansers in flight).

Marie then led us over to the Great Horned Owl nest, where a female was tucked deep inside the hole:

Then things REALLY got interesting.

Our chins pointed to the sky in unison as the once-quiet woods exploded with the squawks and caws of a murder of crows.  We turned and saw a male Great Horned Owl being chased by six crows through the canopy.

The owl glided across the woods on expansive wings….

…dodging crows and naked limbs

…and landed on a branch where we captured image upon image of the scene.

The crows surrounded the owl, squawking in no uncertain terms how they felt about the owl’s presence.

The mobbing scene unfolded over nearly a half hour – a virtual eternity in birders’ terms! After all, how often do you get to see owls during the day? And if you do see one, how long does the scene last?

How often do you get to witness a dramatic scene of bird behavior with an owl as a key player?

And finally, when you ARE lucky enough to see something like this, how often do you have your highest-powered lens with you? Magical scenes like this happen every day in the woods, but we, five passionate wildlife photographers of all skill levels, were lucky to see it unfold right before our eyes.

The owl defended its right to guard its own nest, moving from perch to perch with the crows in hot pursuit.  This bad-ass owl sat–for the most part calm, cool, and collected–on each perch, looking around at the noisy crows that surrounded it, occasionally leaning over to hiss if one edged too near.

Will all the glass pointing at this thing for so long, you’d think one of us may have shot an image worthy of Nat Geo.

But the tree limbs were hard to work around and the light changed with the rambling clouds. Marie says none of her shots were worthy of more than a trash bin.

Me? I have none such pride.

I started out experimenting on various ISOs and Aperture priority settings, but my exposures were dark with no detail. How do I let in more light?  Ultimately, my best exposures came out on Manual Mode (hat tip to Mike who suggested I try this). This last shot was taken on Manual Mode at ISO 200, 5.6 Aperture, 1/500 Shutter. You can see how the clouds parted long enough to let in a flicker of light to reflect off the bird’s iris.

So a day that began with coyotes howling in the mist glided into a dramatic crow-on-owl mobbing scene. Later that day a friend and I would flush two Ruffed Grouse from the woods, pick up two blood-thirsty ticks, and share a beer at a mountainside retreat where woodsmoke curled around our nostrils and saturated our hair.

By all measures, even blood-thirsty ones, my Saturday was excellent.