Evil Hawk Owl

[JayinMN]

Today I was cruising through the bog and saw this hawk owl sitting pretty low to the ground. Lately I have just been driving past them but since this one was in a good range I figured I would give it a go. All is going well until I started moving to left of the owl in an attempt to get a clearer background. Unknowingly, I am moving towards one of his food caches that is a 3-4 tall stump. All of a sudden it makes a noise I have never heard before and attacks. I had them swoop at me before but this one was intending to sink its talons into my skull. To dodge the bird I take a quick step and duck which results in me tripping over a stick in the ditch. With camera in hand I do a face plant and slam it right into the dirt road. Meanwhile the owl lands on the stump, takes dead vole out and flies away laughing.

I was able to blow most of the sand off of it and get it cleaned up good but the LCD screen has a half inch gouge in the left corner. Now I just hope the sucker still operates well, so far it seems to be okay.

Watch out for this guy.

[Todd Caswell]

Where's the action or BIF shots?

Gonna have to start wearing a helmet.........

Sorry to haer about the camera, that first ding really hurts..

[Steve Foss]

Hope you brought a spare pair of undies. Same deal with a great gray owl during the 04/05 invasion. Swooped straight at me and I had to dive for the dirt. With luck, no damage to your camera, Jason.

[dockothebay]

OMG - too much, looks like your camera survived - if this shot was taken after the fall, it seems to be ok! Better watch yourself up there in the wild north woods!

[MN Shutterbug]

Dang, I wish I would have been there to get the dive bombing shots. I didn't realize the north country was THAT wild and untamed.

[finnbay]

Holy "hit the dirt", Batman! Little do the uninitiated know about the evils that lurk in the Bog!

Good luck on the camera, man!

[Hwood]

That would have been something to see.

[Spearing Machine]

What a story Jay!! Glad to hear everything is still functional. That has to be one of the best Hawk Owl shots I have seen yet! Keep up the work buddy!!

[eyeguy 54]

All I can say is "COOL!"

[cryhavoc]

It really sucks what happened to your camera, I hope it's still functional and hopefully a quick and relatively inexpensive repair. I once had someone knock mine over (It was on a tripod)and the lens hood on my telephoto was bent and it had to be shipped to Japan to be repaired. I lost it's usage for several months, it was fortunate I had it insured at the time.

BTW, That really is a beautiful shot of that evil owl.

[Jim Almquist]

Nice shot and a cool story Jason.

Too bad about the camera. The price one has to pay to get a good shot