Snowy

I missed the excitement around 5:30pm last night.
My partner grabbed my dslr w tele and took the photos.
He's been seeing snowys a lot this year on the way home from work and finally one camped out near our place so he could take photos with a decent lens.
Yay!
I hope I get to see one of these snowy owls too.

UPDATE 5Mar12

I got some snowy photos too! Same area and same time. Mine weren't as good, but still fun to observe and I got to see him in flight also. Thank you, Mr. Snowy.



The moon was out at this time so I shot a few moon photos and then layered it in to the owl photo. It was easy to do because similar colors and lighting.

Previously

Surprise Under The Bridge

The big event this weekend was discovering a great horned owl sitting high up under a bridge.



Closeup:


We found him about 8am during a morning walk and took a bunch of photos with my S3 Canon.
Then we came back with all three of my cameras about 11am.
Still there.
None of my/our photos turned out very well (poor close up detail) because of the lighting, angle, distance, etc.
I think that's the first time in nature that I thought "tripod" because my subject actually stayed put.
My arms, neck, shoulders ached from holding a camera high up in the air, taking pictures, but also just plain gawking at him thru the viewer. I tried a video on him also.

He had his eyes closed a lot of the time, but if there was noise, he would open them.
Besides observing his eyes open and close, which is quite fascinating to watch on an owl, we also saw him turn his head way around, lift his huge clawed foot, ruffle feathers, and mostly just sit there and tolerate us humans.



Here's a size comparison with a pigeon, because there were lots of those perched up there as well.



What a privilege to observe!
Before we left, I thanked Mr. Magnificent for the photo shoot.

The Owl and The Pussycat - Videos

What a wonderful video capture!
Pet Owl and Cat playing
Via MeFi

The Owl and the Pussycat:
wiki
1871 poem by Edward Lear.

youtube
Interesting and pretty animation of the poem.

Photographing Owls

Googled the topic of photographing owls. Sounds more complicated than I want to mess with. I know nothing about infrared or flash at night. Don't hunters sometimes use infrared camera setups to learn of activity in certain areas? I didn't think the quality would be that great.

Here are some relevant links on the topic:

Finding/Photographing Owls
Jul 10, 1997
(See Good news/bad news reply.)
"Once you locate a great-horned owl pair, you are likely to find a pair in the same area for the rest of your life."

Mentions fill flash, further down.
So probably some kind of flash is needed to photograph them.
Read further...

The Night Shift -- Photographing Owls and Bats
Home Photographic Technique The Night Shift -- Photographing Owls and Bats
June 25 2008
(Talks about a Photo Trap, a high-speed infrared camera triggering system and flash units.)

More on that here.
Capture the Incredible Using the Photo Trap and High Speed Flash
Wednesday, June 25 2008 Joe McDonald
(Has photos of the equipment.)

Photographing Owls
13th February 2003
Mentions high speed flash and lamps.
May hunt during daylight hours when breeding.

Owl Graphic
(Miscrosoft Office 2010 Images)

Zoo4 - Snowy Owl

One of my favorites at the zoo, was the Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus).

She (I think it's a female) would get a little excited— fluff up the wings/feathers, go around in a circle, and make noise— if I shuffled my feet in the pile of leaves on the trail. So that was quite entertaining. :) I should really capture these moments on video, but just wasn't prepared for that.

enature
Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca)
"Strictly a bird of open country, it is practically never seen in a tree; it sits on the ground, a rooftop, or other exposed resting place."

wiki
Bubo scandiacus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms:
Strix scandiaca Linnaeus, 1758
Nyctea scandiaca Stephens, 1826
"Until recently, it was regarded as the sole member of a distinct genus, as Nyctea scandiaca, but mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data (Olsen et al. 2002) shows that it is very closely related to the horned owls in the genus Bubo."

Sign at Zoo said:
"...recently found to be very closely related to the Great Horned Owl through DNA analysis."
"adult male is nearly solid white, while the females are mottled with black."
"Unlike most other owls, they hunt primarily during the day."

owlpages
"These Owls are highly diurnal, although they may hunt at night as well."

Diurnality
diurnal [active during the day] vs nocturnal [night] vs crepuscular [twilight]

npwrc
"...the snowy is a regular wintering bird in North Dakota and can often be seen perched conspicuously on haystacks, fence posts and stumps."

Owls of North Dakota

Flickr

Visitor of Another Kind

9Nov08 5:40pm


28Nov08 12:22pm


Crop:


28Nov08 4:55pm


I am absolutely thrilled to get that good of picture (the crop) of our great horned owl!
Oh, the adrenaline rush on that one!
So exciting!!

Yeah, I know, that darn branch across his face, but the best I could do in the situation.

Owls are fairly common around here, just never get the opportunity to take a pic because we do not see them during the day and they are very seldom in our backyard like this one was.

I'll be on the lookout for more photo shoot opportunities, as this one seems to be hanging around here more than usual.
I always feel so privileged when any of the more "elusive" creatures allow me to take a picture of them, especially owls, hawks, any of the big birds. This guy tolerated me much longer than I thought he would, and I got more pics and got closer up to him than I had hoped.

I looked down at my feet for a second (was trying to move silently, not crunch on snow and dead leaves) and when I looked up again he was gone. Silent in flight and no trace of him as if he/she just disappeared. Weird feeling.

I usually go to enature or cornell for info. Can listen to their hoot and screech there.

But here are a few more good references for great horns that I found googling...

Bubo virginianus
The great horned owl spends the majority of its time hunting. The owl can see during the day, but has even better vision at night. The silent flight of this owl can be attributed to its loose, soft feathers. These two factors, and the fact that its prey is most active at night make it most advantageous for the great horned owl to hunt at night.

Take a look at those claws, whoa...
talons and feet, captive individual

Fun Facts
Bubo (a horned owl) virginianus (from Virginia)

See also Owls of North Dakota
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