This morning was one of those cool beautiful November mornings in the woods near the Zumbro River. Me and Erin, the dog, were walking the trails. As usual, I had a camera. I had the 105mm lens because it's relatively lightweight, I can do closeups and some distance, and I feel it covers the bases.

And then, I saw this owl at about 5' off the ground, completely backlit. I took a few dozen shots of him, all no better than this one.

Nikon D810, ISO 250, 1/1000, f3.5 Nikon 105mm lens (prime)

I moved closer and he flew. I headed around to catch him on the other side, through the prickly ash, the black raspberry canes, the fallen trees and branches. To make this even funnier, since it was gun deer season, I was wearing a bright orange sweatshirt and a blaze orange vest. I snagged on everything!  The owl and I went in circles for an hour. He stayed low, mostly 5-10' off the ground.The chickadees were pretty annoyed at him and told me where he was. So were the red squirrels. The woods were noisy.Knowing I had the wrong lens -- and the dog -- I went back inside, left Erin, and got the 300mm lens.  

The owl had eyes only for me. I had eyes only for him. But with the 300mm lens, I had a greater chance of getting a good photo and not being as much of a stalker as I'd been feeling. He spent about 15 minutes on a branch off of a dead stump of a tree where a red squirrel was living. The squirrel danced around him, getting as close as 2 feet to the owl. But the owl wasn't interested in the squirrel probably because I was too close. The squirrel chittered and scrambled all around, but the owl looked at me. Finally, I decided to spare the poor squirrel from so much turmoil and moved close enough to cause the owl to retreat to the next tree. And then I was set for the shot.

Nikon D810, ISO 400, 1/1600, f4.0, Nikon 300mm lens (prime)

Nikon D810, ISO 400, 1/1600, f4.0, Nikon 300mm lens (prime)

Nikon D810, ISO 400, 1/1600, f4.0, Nikon 300mm lens (prime)