SHORT EARED OWLS: Wildlife Photography

I head out on a freezing but beautiful winter morning to try and photograph the migrating Short Eared Owls on a nearby nature reserve.
A clear and sunny start lead to cloud and snow but the best was to happen as the conditions worsened in the afternoon.

INSTAGRAM: I'm at   / nigelpmorley  

The amazing cold but sunny weather in late January and into February this year has created some wonderful conditions with amazing golden light and some stunning sunrises. This lent itself perfectly to being up early to look for Owls hunting across the meadows and fields locally.

Like all wildlife photography there are no guarantees but I have spent hundreds of hours in this area this year often coming away with nothing but I did have some better moments! This day was cold and breezy but clear but the forecast hinted at cloud and a stiff northerly wind bringing in snow flurries and they were right

The SEO's head across from Northern Europe and Scandinavia to escape the worst of winter there and hit our coasts from October onwards but there a few birds resident in the UK (mainly the Peak District)

I haven't mentioned camera settings much in the video as virtually everything is 500mm lens on a gimbal tripod head and using Auto-ISO, above 1/1000th of a second and either f/4 or f/5.6. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Whilst I'll be still trying to film any of my longer trips, I'd like this to be the start of my "ONE HOUR FROM HOME" series where I concentrate on subjects within an hour's drive from my house. I'm hoping it will make me concentrate on and appreciate more what I have in my (very overcrowded) part of south east England. Apologies to those hardy subscribers who wondered why I'd stopped YT videos but alas life got in the way somewhat. Hopefully they'll be more regular going forward

If you like my videos, it’s great to hear feedback and you can subscribe here if you’d like to see more. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7R...

MY WEBSITE: www.nigelmorley.co.uk. ( I do sell a small number of my images in very limited editions and they can be viewed here. )

EQUIPMENT USED IN THIS VIDEO:
Nikon D4
Nikon 500mm f/4 VR II telephoto
Gitzo 3542XL Tripod
Wimberley Gimbal head

FOR THE VLOGGING:
Canon G7x Mark II
Separate audio via Zoom Audio recorder and a Rode lav mic.
Gorillapod
Lowepro and Atlas backpacks

MUSIC: All supplied by Epidemic Sound

ABOUT ME: A long time passionate wildlife/landscape photographer and conservationist, I have always shot different genres of photography but my now my subjects are largely driven by love of countryside and wildlife especially in the UK. I have a long term conservation project ongoing involving restoring land that was previously arable farmland back to wildlife friendly set aside with wildflower meadows and zero spraying etc.