A wildlife photographer got the perfect mid-flight shot of an owl, but it nearly had his head in the process. Casey Cooper said the close call surprised him, since he’d never seen an owl do this before. Thankfully, no one got hurt, and the photographer ended up with the perfect shot.
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“Owl almost scalped me,” wrote Cooper in his Instagram post sharing the video. “Was really surprised the owl flew directly at us, I haven’t witnessed behavior like this before. This was filmed outside of nesting/fledging season so it didn’t make any sense but maybe this owl was just feeling super territorial. Nonetheless we let it be after it swooped on us. Owls have extremely sharp and large talons that would easily rip into our scalps, luckily I had the camera to hide behind.”
See a photographer’s close call with an owl here: