Crested Owl, Sarapique region, Costa Rica

We visited a wildlife artist and photographer at his studio home about 45 minutes from Selva Verde Lodge in the Sarapique region of Costa Rica. I am embarrassed to day I don’t remember the name of the town, but I certainly will not forget the visit. He spent the afternoon showing us wonderful things…from this Crested Owl to Honduran White Tent-making Bats, to Glass Frogs. The owl was tucked back under a mass of vines and vegetation, in about as dark a spot as it could have found in the second growth rainforest it calls home. I had to use Multiple Exposure Noise Reduction mode which stacks several exposures to get a reasonable shot. The alternative would have been ISO 12500 and much more noise than this image shows. 

Full disclosure…the owl had a damaged eye on the right side. It was completely clouded over. Since the sequence of shots I got that afternoon were my first of this bird, and quite possible my last (unless I get to Central American and find myself again in the right place at the right time…something I can not count on 🙂 I took the liberty of “repairing” the owl’s bad eye using the very fine clone tool in TouchRetouch. 

Sony Rx10iii at 400mm equivalent. Multi-frame Noise Reduciton mode. Nominal exposure: ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/50th. Processed in Polarr and TouchRetouch.