Reddish Scops Owl | Birds of Borneo

Reddish Scops Owl | Birds of Borneo

I was in Kubah National Park Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo in October 2011 looking for owl with Yeo Siew Teck. It was about 8 pm on the main road in the park. The road going up into the national park was pitched dark as soon as we past the chalets.

Yeo heard the faint call of the Reddish Scops Owl. The call is a single rather high pitched drawn out note hew repeated at 7- 10 second interval (Phillipps Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo by Quentin & Karen Phillipps). Yeo called back and listened to its reply to slowly locate the bird. The bird was very shy. While the owl was cooperative at the end, the drifting mist did not help us at all as the pictures become foggy and blur. The bird stayed for 5-10 minutes before it disappeared.

Shooting owl in total darkness was a challenge. I used manual setting with TTL flash. Focusing was using a very strong torch light and manually focus the subject on the view finder. Camera and lens were on tripod.