“You wanna piece of me?” A long-eared owl giving quite a serious look and seems ready to take on the photographer.  Of course, I think owls almost always look serious, never happy.

There are a number of these cool creatures of the night that have popped up at a hotspot not far from Denver, closer than the usual location I find them. Since I hadn’t gotten decent pics of them recently, I checked them out this past weekend.

Light was kind of cruddy and I kept my visit brief so as not to stress them out but, as always, they provided some entertaining looks. Loved how serious this one seems to be and you get at least a little bit of a view of those ferocious talons.

Yesterday’s photo outing had me cover 160 miles and while it wasn’t nearly as productive as I had hoped, I did get to spend some time with these cool masters of camouflage in the 7 degree early morning temperatures (brrr!).

These cool owls bury themselves in the thickest of brush to conceal themselves and getting a clear shot of them is almost impossible. I had quite a few sightings yesterday but only a couple were in a spot where I could get any sort of decent pic, this being one of them.

While at this point it was clearly watching me, it also was pretty relaxed, dozing off at a couple of points during my encounter with it.

Looking for something “different” from my recent photo subjects, I am jumping back to March for this capture.

The long-eared owls at this spot on Colorado’s northeastern plains are always a highlight for me, even if they require an extraordinary amount of time and effort to get pictures of.

On this morning, I spotted a few in this dense stand of Russian olive trees. Getting a clear shot of them though was an entirely different matter. I only managed a few and this is one of them.

The magpies in the area had also found them and the little black birds were not too keen to have the owls in the area. They made quite a racket in their effort to get the owl to leave and that in turn put it on high alert. This shot does give you a nice look at those deadly talons, something you don’t normally get to see.

When you are out carousing all night, you spend your day sleeping and trying to recover. No doubt that is what this owl was doing and it found a perfect place to hide. No matter where I moved, I could not get any clearer shot of it than this and it seemed to know it. While it cracked its eyes open briefly, it soon closed them and went right back to sleep.

This wide-eyed long eared owl was definitely focused on the photographer.

My last two attempts to visit with these guys had not gone so well. The first time I only saw one and it just didn’t want to make itself available for pics. The last time, I saw none at all. Looking for something different to do this past weekend, I decided I needed to try again so I headed to the northeastern Colorado plains.

Finally, I had some success. They did not make it easy by any means. It took a half hour crawling through thick Russian olive trees to find them but, once I did, it was worth it. I spent the next hour with five of them and while I never got any truly clear views of them, they did give me some decent captures. This particular one seemed a bit surprised to have been discovered. 😉

A fun shot showing how these cool owls get their name as this one was quite attentive, putting those tufts up. Then there are those crazy, awesome eyes.

Yesterday I returned to one of my favorite spots on the far northeastern Colorado plains, looking to break from the routine and photograph some different critters. Usually, long eared owls hang out at least in pairs and in the off season, oftentimes in larger groups, but this was the only one I was able to spot.

As you can see, this guy / gal was well-hidden and absolutely buried in a thicket of trees and bushes. This was the only angle that gave me even a halfway decent shot and even then it was quite obscured. Nevertheless, lots of fun and the first time I have photographed one of these guys since last winter.

A bit of a throwback image to March when I was finally able to find these awesome guys. They had moved to a different thicket of Russian olive trees from where they were historically and it took me three visits to find them. When I did find them, it was well worth it.

This particular owl was quite the cooperative subject. It had perched in a relatively open spot and paid me little attention. I just sat down in the dirt and observed it for nearly a half hour. It gave me a ton of fantastic poses from looking at me to closing its eyes and napping to looking toward the sun. I then quietly departed, leaving it as I found it.

How about that look? I have to say, it looks a little bit evil with the pointy ears and very serious look on the owl’s face.

Long eared owls are really interesting in that they have so many different appearances. This one looks somewhat short and pudgy but when they fully stand up, they look much more slender and almost like a different type of bird.

I usually only get to see them a time or two a year but it is definitely a treat each and every time – even if it usually means crawling through poky Russian olive trees. 😉

You can view more of my pics of these guys here.