First birding shots ever - 7d - 70-200 f4 is - Sigma 1.4x - Great Grey Owl - CC please

I have mixed feelings. I'm not an animal rights person but I do think it is a bit cavalier to be tossing live mice to their death in order to secure a photo. My conservative guess is that at least a hundred mice have been fed to these particular birds. Baiting owls has also resulted in a flood of easy to obtain near identical images, ones that used to require enormous skill and patience to obtain.

On the other hand I have taken photos when others are tossing mice and its a pretty dramatic scene. A lot of photographers have had amazing experiences with these Ottawa birds. And when the small rodent population collapses across the boreal forest it's basically a "hail Mary pass" kind of situation for the Great Grays to move south, starving and desperately looking for food. Maybe the mice save a few owls.

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Paul B Jones
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbjones/