Photographer calls owl baiting unethical fakery
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/feb/28/out-about-photographer-calls-owl-baiting-unethical/Article contains important information, including: "Great gray owls are plunge hunters. They don't fly in toward prey with their talons down. Almost all photos you see like that are fake. But they are passed off as real."
In this file photo, a great gray owl, which has a range from Canada to parts of the northern United States, dives after prey beneath snow in a field on the outskirts of Ottawa, Canada, Jan. 30, 2005. (JONATHAN HAYWARD / Associated Press)