Les and Amty, the Amity Great Horned Owls, were hooting up a storm last night. Like me, after three days of ugly weather including nights with 60+ and 40+ mph winds, everyone was thrilled to have a night of calm clear skies (and in the daytime too!). I was actually returning from an evening hike when my owls greeted me with their hoot song. I had been hiking shortly after sunset in Hartley Park chasing a Barred Owl Hoot! I hope to follow the Barred Owl’s hoot and find their nest.

Anyhow, I decided to go inside, get my audio recording equipment and record the Amity Owl’s love songs. When I reached their nest darned if the male had not left its daytime perch and was now perched right above the nest and perfectly out in the open. Oops … I thought this might be a great opportunity to try some night photograph of Les. One problem … I had not brought my camera gear (seemed too dark). You guessed it … I hiked home but as I was starting my return hike to the nest site I realized “the hoot” was now coming from my yard. Yup, Les had followed me home and was now perched on a pine tree next to my house!

Obviously it was time to try a night video! Although it was 30 minutes after sunset, I set my ISO high (3,200) and attempted to record the evening hoot. A few moments later while taking my first video, Amy decided to join the chorus. She arrived and perched only 20 feet directly above me in a dead tree (another reason NOT to remove dead trees from your yard unless there is a known infestation … the birds, bugs and mammals will thank you).

As a fyi … I have been working upon increasing my night time photography skills over the past few weeks … trying to learn how to take both better photographs and videos after dark. Quite frankly I impressed myself! Although I did not have a tripod, by using a monopod and learning against my house for further stabilization, I started my photo session. My ultimate goal is to to take videos of the owlets over the next two months starting at sunset when they become more active.

Here is a photo of Les, the Great Horned Owl 30 minutes after sunset. My Sony A6300 camera settings were: ISO is set at 3,200, Aperture is 6.3, Exposure is 1/8 of a second, lens is 70 – 350 mm Sony (at full zoom). I put the photograph through two passes of Topaz Sharpen AI … the first to focus upon removing noise and the second with a focus upon removing blurs.

It was actually a night photographing session with the Northern Lights two weeks ago which led me down this rabbit hole. Ultimately I purchased Adobe Premier Elements 2023 (the little brother of Premier Pro for video editing). Total cost was $99 (also included upgrading my copy of Photoshop Elements.

Here are Les and Amy Hooting last night (you are able to hear Amy’s hooting respones … and screeching which is normal for a Great Horned Owl female)(Owl Hooting Video Link for email subscribers)

I am also reworking my real time videos from the night of the Northern Lights (Sand River, Greenwood Forest Fire Burn Area). Using Premier Elements I ran it through their “auto video noise tool, and tweaked the brightness). (Aurora Borealis Video Link for email subscribers). By the time I decided to shoot the video, the display had died down somewhat … and was green at that point.