Yes, there’s a town shares their love of the burrowing owl. If I’m a burrowing owl, I want to live here. Why? For starters, Cape Coral is home to Florida’s largest populations of these small owls. How many? Over 1000! Now that’s something to spread your wings over!
Plus, they have an annual Burrowing Owl Festival. This year it’s February 29 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. If you’re in the area, looks like a fun and educational day.
Because of the popularity of these tiny owls, both photographers and birders travel far and wide to see these little cuties. As hard as it is to see many birds, I almost felt guilty at how easy it was to see these owls.
My first viewing of the burrowing owl in Florida
I have to confess though, my first time seeing the burrowing owl in Florida was in Fort Lauderdale a few years ago. In the spring, I was in the car with a co-worker when I saw a pair sitting on a soccer field fence.
After hyperventilating from excitement (and scaring my co-worker, Anthony), we did a quick U-turn to check them out. The next morning at sunrise, the owls and I were the only ones in the soccer field. They are so adorable!
When is the best time to see the burrowing owls?
These owls stay in Florida year round but they aren’t very visible when it heats up in the summer. In the winter and cooler seasons, it’s a different story. My recent trip to Cape Coral in early February filled the camera with many photos.
What lenses do you need?
For the burrowing owl, you don’t want to get too close as they need their space. We don’t want them leaving their nests or wasting precious energy due to photographers and viewers scaring them away. This threatened owl faces significant loss of habitat and predators. Let’s keep our distance and keep them safe.
For bird photography, I use Nikon’s D500 cropped sensor camera. For the burrowing owls, my Nikon 300 f/4e PF lens with a 1.4 teleconverter was more than enough. The light weight of this lens allowed me to shoot handheld. I was able to maintain a safe distance for the owls while capturing desired composition.
Camera settings for the burrowing owl
As these birds are small and fairly stationary, you can take your time and move slowly. That’s not something we do often when photographing birds! The settings ranged from and f/8 to f/11 based on the surroundings. My ISO was fairly high (1000) in Cape Coral as it was very overcast and rainy in the morning. Had it been a sunny day my ISO would have been 250.
The image on the fence in Fort Lauderdale was two images blended (stacked) in Photoshop. I wanted both owls in focus combined with the soft, bright yellow flowers in the background. An f/4.5 was probably too shallow for this subject, but that’s part of the learning curve. If I were to do this over again, I would have shifted to an f/8 and stacked the fence too. For more information on focus stacking: Focus Stacking: Big Depth of Field in Photoshop
How about a trip to Florida?
Traveling to Florida offers diverse birding and nature photography. Check out my recent article on Travel Photography: Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Another Florida gem that’s just waiting to be explored.
Where to stay? So many places to choose from! We stayed near Fort Meyers using VRBO. A central location with easy access to Ding Darling, Captiva, Cape Coral, Corkscrew and Naples, Florida.
