Winter prairie landscapes
I spent a lot of time on the prairies in December. These days started early in the morning so I was able to enjoy watching night give way to day. And several hours later, watch the principles switch as the short daylight hours ran out.
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First Snowy owl of the season!
For the past couple of years, every November I start getting excited to see Snowy owls. That is the time that they start to return to southern Alberta after their summer nesting season in the Arctic. This year, Great gray owls and mountain landscapes kept me away from the Prairies until December. When I head out to the open fields east of Calgary, I crossed paths with three separate Snowies and a Red fox – truly a windfall of good fortune!
The first Snowy owl was perched on a telephone pole overlooking a farm field where the fox was hunting. She was content to swivel her head around to keep eyes on everything around but not very excited by me, the traffic passing by, the farm dog that barked now and again at the fox nor the fox herself. So relaxed, that she stayed put for almost two hours. It was -22°C and the wind made it feel cooler than that. I couldn’t blame her for not moving around too much but it was quite a while to wait. I maneuvered my car to the far side of the road so that I could keep a lens on her from my seat and waited. The light flattened out and the clouds formed a white sheet behind her but I didn’t mind too much – I was happy to spend time with my first Snowy this winter!
When she did launch off the pole, it was to glide down to the field. She skimmed low over the snow and grass before disappearing behind a small rise. I hopped out and walked along the fence to a vantage point where I could see the owl again. She looked like she was preening after eating a mouse but I didn’t see the attack if it did happen. She sat and watched some more, staring at me lazily a couple of times – and once with the focused laser beams as seen above! After a few minutes, she stood up and quickly took flight again.
I love watching owls take off – they have strong wingbeats that have a clipped range of motion which seems effective to get them into the air fast. The Snowy owls, along with the Great horned owls, are enormous as far as North American owls go so it is impressive how much power they generate. She flapped hard and then levelled off about 2-3 metres off the ground as she retraced her flight plan back towards the road.
Near the fence line she climbed up to perch on a new telephone pole’s insulator. Once settled, she puffed up her feathers – the one acknowledgement to the cold I saw from her this time out.
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More from the Canada Day lightning storm
When my children and I decided to head out from Redwood Meadows to find a good vantage point to watch the lightning storm hanging over the Bow River between Cochrane and Calgary, we stopped when we got past the edge of the forest and could first see the storm itself.
We found a spot 10 miles from the closest edge of the storm and watched the show which rippled and flashed in the massive clouds rising off the northern horizon.
At one point while we were watching the lightning erupting at 3, 4 or 5 different places at once, my son said, “Baby Thor is having a temper tantrum”. That seemed about right and apparently he has an enormous amount of energy because the lightning flashed and the bolts flew constantly for the two hours that I was there.
I re-worked the image that I first posted from the storm – cooling the white balance by almost 1000°K. I really love how the lightning bolts crackle out of the cloud column.
On the way back, I stopped by a pond where the western edge of the storm, still busy with sheet lightning, was reflected in its surface. A beautiful final view of the storm before heading home.
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Prairie sunrise silhouettes
Sunday’s sunrise shone through a narrow break on the horizon. A storm coming out of the mountains darkened most of the sky but with the light rode in from the east and painted the leading edges of the clouds. I was east of Bragg Creek along Highway 8 as the colour started to build so I pulled in behind a stand of trees that have great lines.
The branches silhouetted against the dawn gave me a lot to work with and here are three takes over a fifteen minute window before the colour drained out and the clouds stretched fully across the sky.
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Snowies east of Langdon
I drove east of Langdon in the evening a couple of days ago looking for owls. At this time of the year the odds are decent to see Snowy owls perched on a silo or a fence line so I was looking for them as well as Short-eared owls that have been reported in that area recently. It was about an hour before sundown when I found a Snowy owl perched a couple of hundred metres away along a fence line.
This beautiful fellow flew between a few posts and was not interested in having me around so I headed west as the sun fell behind a tall bank of clouds standing over the Rocky Mountains. I found the second, and final, Snowy of the afternoon on a small oil and gas installation built on a rise that was a bit of a hike from the road.
She was perched on a storage tank and took only passing interest in me during my 15 minute walk towards her. As I drew closer I took a few photographs and as color came into the sky with sunset, I took a bunch more :)!
She kept tabs on me but had her focus on the surrounding fields. I didn’t see anything of note but it was a different story for the owl.
When she did launch she glided over to another small hill then dived into the field where it seemed she caught something. It was too far for me to make out and when she flew again after a couple of minutes she went further away and I had no interest in chasing her any further.
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Dawn along the prairie’s horizon
Early morning is my favourite time to be out on the prairies at any time of the year. There is a tranquility born out of the silence that hangs over the land before dawn whose beauty draws me in. I love the big sky and where it meets the horizon as the sun approaches there is an evolving magic which shows different faces as the night retreats and slips away.
This morning southeast of High River in early January this year was beautiful. The silhouette of the trees and the grain silos provided great anchors in these photographs of the eastern glow and the blazing cloud that suggested a dragon’s nature to me.
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Photographing through dawn on the prairies
I spent a morning photographing the sun rising over the prairies west of Calgary on the weekend. In the image above, the alpen glow to the west heralds the sun’s coming approach. When the sun came up, the pink quickly washed out of the sky and painted the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains and then these stands of trees that break up this field along Highway 8. I love watching these transitions as colors deepen, fade and change altogether.
Facing a low sun, shadows stretched out long across the snow. I played with those for a bit under the increasingly blue sky before heading home.
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Blue sky, white owl
The cold morning cleared out a few early clouds and the afternoon east of High River was bright under a deep blue sky. I found a couple of Snowy owls across the day with this one’s flight after launching from a telephone pole standing out due to the sunlight catching the yellow eyes brilliantly. A great day on the prairies with these beautiful animals.
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Watching over the prairie
I found this Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) perched on a long abandoned barn’s window sill. It was a cold day and this spot was out of the wind and facing the sun, which did come out a little later. Pretty smart place to doze the daylight hours away.
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A Snowy day on the Prairies
I have a deep admiration for Snowy owls. The range they cover, their adaptability, their calm repose they show when resting and their beauty while in flight are just the tip of a long list. This time of the year is exciting for me as it marks the return of these owls to the prairies. I was aware of recent sightings near Frank Lake and decided to head down there on the weekend. A beautiful sunrise greeted me shortly after I arrived and then I set about touring the backroads in search of these wonderful birds.
After an hour I found this owl perched on the fence dividing up the prairie. She watched me stop and get out of my car with some interest and then spent much of the next four hours ignoring me! I packed on as much glass as I had (a 500mm with a 1.4x extender) and crossed onto the field. She was a couple of hundred meters from the road so I took an indirect line to get closer and tried to make sure I didn’t make her anxious or uncomfortable. After 15 minutes I was about 30 metres away and she head her eyes closed more than open. The photograph above was one of the moments when she looked my way. Over the next hour and a half, the wind blew, she made two separate short flights low over the fields returning to a nearby fence post, I got chilled and she seemed to catch up on a fair bit of sleep. I loved sharing time there and when she finally flew off across the road and out of sight, I thought that was the end.
I was wrong. I returned to my car, packed things up again, and drove west back towards Frank Lake. About two kilometres down the road, there she was standing in a field of sticks close to the road. These dried out stalks made an interesting environment to photograph the owl in and I set up in the ditch so I was low to the ground. Looking at the time stamp on the image files, we stayed there for more than two hours, however it did not seem anywhere near that long. She started to become a bit restless for a few minutes before she flew. Preening feathers and looking around in all directions until she finally leaped back into the air.
I followed her to her intended destination which was a pair of grain silos just across the road. She alighted next to the open cover of one of the silos and I had a perfect spot to watch her leaning against my car.
The picture above was not the owl landing on the silo. There must have been mice in the silo because during the 20 minutes she perched on that lip she spent a fair bit of time looking down into hole. Staring intently mostly but a couple of times she spread her wings out and I thought she might dive in there. When she flew off, she followed the roofline down and disappeared from my view. I think she was chasing a mouse but I’m not sure if she caught it or not.
After a few seconds, the owl flew back into sight when it banked around the silos and crossed the road again. I followed her once again until she disappeared over the low rise. Again, I thought that was the end of this extended visit.
Again, I was wrong. She landed a little further down the road, I followed and we spent another hour watching one another. Well, me watching her and her paying much more attention to everything else.
The weather was changing fast with the wind carrying the clouds further east and leaving blue sky and sunshine behind. I think both the owl and I enjoyed that. I had bundled up so the chill was gone – the Snowy had no such challenges.
The encounter did truly end when she either grew tired of my company or was ready for a meal off of the prairie. A pretty fantastic experience for me.
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A prairie dawn
A cluster of grain silos sits on the horizon under the brightening dawn sky on the prairies east of High River, Alberta, Canada. I love big skies and I think the scale provided by these farm buildings helps convey that here.
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Reconnecting with the Snowy owls
I drove to High River yesterday and spent the morning touring the gravel roads looking for wildlife on the prairies. My hope was to find a Snowy owl as they have begun returning there. An hour after sunrise, east of Frank Lake, I spied a beautiful owl perched on a fence line and I spent the next four hours watching it sit, fly, hunt and then sit. A lot of watching while she dozed or scanned the surroundings but it was time I enjoyed completely. I wanted to share this photograph of the bird from the early afternoon when she landed in a field and was surrounded by sticks left behind after the last harvest. I am excited to share more from the day and will soon.
