During my road trip through Florida last month, I stopped by Marco Island to see the burrowing owls. Many of the owls reside in the yards of the homes in Marco Island. The burrows can easily be spotted because they are typically protected by wooden posts and yellow tape. Although there are burrows everywhere, just one owl made an appearance for my photography.

Burrowing owls are quite small. This one is about 8 inches tall. These owls are about the size of a robin.

Eventually, I worked in very close with a lot of focal length. This image was captured with 700mm of focal length (500mm lens with 1.4x teleconverter attached)...and I was within an inch of the minimum focus distance. If I moved any closer, even an inch, the lens would no longer have been able to focus on the owl!

Fortunately, there was some cloud cover which provided decent light for this portrait.

Burrowing OwlBurrowing owl at 489 W Elkcam Circle in Marco Island, Florida on December 13, 2018