From Joshua N Wiley

Haunting.

My signature shot as a wildlife photographer is of Snowy Owl in a fir tree lined up with the rising full moon. It’s been one of my most popular images. So I try not to miss any opportunity to line up birds with the moon. Especially owls. It’s become a bit of a personal project for me.

While in Alligator River last Friday night, I spotted a Great Horned Owl perching from a dead tree after nightfall. Then I saw the first quarter moon. Then I put two and two together.

The owl was actually too close for the shot to work at f/11, because the owl basically covered the entire half moon. But at f/4, the moon swelled a little bit in bokeh, and the owl fit inside its out-of-focus glow.

8/29/25

Nikon Z9, 600 mm, 600 mm, f/4, ISO 2000, 1/100 second.

Dare County, North Carolina

  • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    27 days ago

    I usually chalk it up to federation issues, but you’re on .World too, so that doesn’t explain it. I just tell myself quirks are part of the Lemmy charm.

    Your points were the 2 that also caught my attention as I started to reach useful levels of consciousness.

    Buuuuut! A minor thing, Snowies doooo have plumicorns! Teeny weenie ones, even smaller than a Short Eared Owl, but they exist. We just usually don’t see them, and they certainly wouldn’t be visible in this pic. But here’s some where they are.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      2·
      27 days ago

      I think it’s sync, sometimes it just doesn’t refresh the feed that I’ve loaded a couple hours ago as I’ve just browsed the same feed without having refreshed it. No need with how slow lemmy is.

      Alright yeah, seems they do. Nice observation.

      But yeah not as prominent as ones in the picture.

      Thanks the pics