November 24
Good Evening
This week delivered a couple of interesting Great Grey Owl encounters. I had a university friend , Dave Relke, visiting from Calgary and we went out to the farm for a hike. On our way back to Edmonton, I decided to check out a Great Grey Owl (GGOW) spot. I have been by a few times this fall but I have not been successful in finding the owls. This night, it was there, right on a fence post beside the road!
As we approached, it flew to the other side of the road. We stayed back and photographed from the truck. It then flew back across the road further away. We got out of the truck and photographed it until it was dark. When we decide to leave, I stopped the truck right beside it so Dave could get a shot in the dark with his iPhone. It looked at us once or twice but didn’t move. After five minutes, Dave said he wished it would fly. I said “Stay on it, it will fly when I get out of the truck.”. I did and it didn’t. I decided to try some creative shots and I put on my landscape (24 -105mm) lens and walked around the truck to where it was. It didn’t fly away. I layed down in the ditch to line up the moon behind it, it didn’t fly away. I walked up to the fence , one fence post away. It didn’t fly away. I lowered by shutter speed to 1/50 sec and increased the ISO to 16000. It didn’t fly away. Eventually , a truck came by at high speed and it flew up into a tree beside the road.
As we headed home, I told Dave that the owl had ruined my plans for the next day, as I was planning to take him north of Edmonton in search of Great Grey Owls.
He said , that was fine, we could go and maybe find some Northern Hawk Owls.
The next day we got up early and headed about 1 1/2 hours north of Edmonton. We spent another 1 1/2 hours before we found our first GGOW. It was very nervous and flew away as we approached. We followed it and it flew away again, so we left it.
We went another mile up the road and found another. This one was much more approachable and was actively hunting both sides of the road. We watched it catch a couple of voles. At one point, we observed that it was hunting one side of the road and moving from post to post. So I positioned myself in the ditch, quite aways from where it was, in hopes that it would continue coming in the same direction. Dave got out his iPhone and started videoing. The owl flew into the field, plunged but was not successful. It flew back to the post and then took off in my direction. It immediately turned to come directly at me and then turned away once it got close. Woo hoo!
What is really exciting, is Dave captured it all on video!. So I have compiled a video that shows Dave’s video clip, then all of the images I shot at 20 frames per second and then a few stills for both the plunge and the fly-by.
We continued on and saw three more GGOWs that day. Six owls in 24 hours is pretty special.
I hope you enjoy it.
Stay Well !
Click on photos to see full size
