These Owls Have Had Enough of This Camera

These Owls Have Had Enough of This Camera

A common piece of advice given to street photographers is if your subject seems unhappy about the presence of your camera, it's better to simply not take the picture and remove yourself from the situation. It would appear that that advice should extend to owls, as these rather ornery owls took out a camera that was supposed to be secretly observing them, and the resulting video is hilarious.

The Hawk Conservancy Trust in the UK set up a hidden camera to capture Burrowing Owls recently, but it appears the camera was not hidden particularly well, as two owls immediately found the camera, after which curiosity quickly turned to annoyance, which quickly turned to knocking over the offending device. Check it out in the video below:

Personally, I'm surprised the angry owl glaring at the camera hasn't become a widespread meme yet. The Hawk Conservancy hasn't said if they tried setting up the camera again in a better hiding spot or if they decided to find less grumpy subjects, but I certainly wouldn't mind a sequel. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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5 Comments

Too cute! They're not having any of it!

That is such great footage! Their natural face expression adds so much to the context.

My wife feels the same way when i want to take au naturel pictures of her!

Perhaps they heard it focusing, owls have incredible hearing.

Probably see their reflections in the lens.