#088-365 Eyes

Another shot from my visit to Taronga Park Zoo, and the open air flying display. This is one of about three shots that I took of this fellow Angus the Rufous Owl, These are different to most owls (and here the Eyes have it) having smaller looking eyes from those that hunt exclusively at night.

This guy is by comparison a guts, no snacking on three or four mice a night for him, he likes big meals. Living primarily in pockets of rainforest in a large number of regions primarily in the Northern Parts of Australia, they eat primarily birds some even bigger than themselves, and generally these birds are tucked up nice and cosy at night so the Rufous has developed into a day hunter. At dusk and around dawn he has been known to take down and eat Flying Foxes (Fruit Bats) Which can grow about as big as a medium sized Corgi (without the wings), like any bird of Prey they will eat anything going, I have seen one just outside Darwin feeding on a kangaroo carcass by the side of the road, and I am sure that any litle rodent that presented itself to him in daylight, would be of the short lived variety.

As I said I got about three shots of him looking at me during his "Performance: and in all he seemed to be looking straight down into the lens, I thought it had to be my personality, but maybe it was just that he could see his own reflection in the lens and thought there is a meal, who knows.