ML495979881

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

POV: It's around 5pm when you stagger onto the lakeside plain. Your legs are slashed by brambles and the blood running down your ankles lovingly mixes with the deep red vaccinium leaves. Your pack weighs about half your body weight and your knees buckle with every step. You've been working for over 10 hours, so you're not even being paid for this. You try to sit down calmly where you'll pitch your tent and inside flop weakly face-first into a pile of old elk droppings. At least you miss the fresh bear scat right next to you. Emerging from under your pack, you feel the sores on your lower back mix painfully with the river of sweat running off your face. Suddenly it's freezing cold and you struggle to zip the pant portion back onto your zip-off shorts. One is partially on when you hear it. o-o-o-o ooooo. And it's close. With a pained gasp you grab your bins and limp-stagger through the berry bushes, trying to keep your vision from swimming. It's so close but you can't find it. It's nearby. It's your last week in the field. It's your birthday. You've heard a pygmy-owl three times this year but still haven't ever seen one. And then. Suddenly. Perched on a dead snag. You see it. Tiny, fierce, tooting and flipping its tail like a kestrel. Zooming between trees with a woodpecker-like rhythm. The day. Has come. TL;DR: Saw and heard my lifer Northern Pygmy-Owl on my birthday, it was cool.

Technical information

Model

iPhone 6s

Lens

iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2

ISO

25

Focal length

4.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/2.2

Shutter speed

1/712 sec

Dimensions

4032 pixels x 3024 pixels

Original file size

1.23 MB