Short-eared Owls (Asio flammeus)
On March 13, 2005, my brother Frank & I went to see Short-eared Owls reported to be hunting in a field just south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We met fellow digiscopers, set up our rigs and waited. At 4:50pm 20 Owls flew up out of a drainage ditch all at once and began hunting. It was a spectacular scene, and since the camera was attached to the scope, I didn't get an explosion picture. Part of the suprise was the fact that we were all looking at that ditch for as much as an hour, and none of us realized the Owls were roosting in the ditch right in front of us. We also saw the Albino Red-tailed Hawk previously reported to be hanging around.
I used the CP 8400 attached to the Swarovski AT80 with Dr. Cheang's UDC adapter. Since I still haven't converted my Digisnap remote shutter release to work with the CP 8400, I used the 3 sec. timer.
The albino Red-tailed Hawk was in the trees at the far side of the field, possibly 1 1/2 to 2 football fields distance away from us, so this is as sharp as I could get it with my rig.
