Great gray owl winter flights
I love watching Great gray owls fly – particularly when they launch. The snowstorm that hit Bragg Creek on Thursday night created a wintry scene that was still hiding spring on Saturday when I went out. It made for an interesting backdrop to this owl as it took flight.
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Flying low over the Prairies
The Bald eagles in the Livingstone area have held my attention for more than a full day and I’m looking forward to getting back there soon. I am wanting to catch one of their attacks on the Richardson ground squirrels that blanket the fields. The last time I went out, this immature eagle flew in front of me and I thought it might find one. It didn’t happen then but the opportunity for in-flight photographs was wonderful.
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Spread eagle
With the steady wind that was blowing, this near-mature Bald eagle only had to open its massive wing to take flight. With the ~2 metre wingspan it easily glided over to a neighbouring tree where a couple other eagles were perched. It was another great weekend on the high Prairie east of Lundbreck watching eagles.
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A Bald eagle’s Prairie flight
Watching birds in flight is a source of great pleasure for me. Perhaps it’s the freedom I imagine they enjoy (written just as two ravens glided by my window, acrobatically playing on the air currents outside) or the grace that many of them carry into the sky. When I have the gift of watching them close to the ground, it gives a different perspective and one that I particularly enjoy photographing.
So when two of the four bald eagles that watched for quite a while on the weekend glided off of their tree perch and landed out on the field nearby, I was excited. I had hoped they may dive on the prairie dogs as they passed by. They did not, it seemed that an alert had gone up as the little creatures were nowhere to be seen at that moment, and they alighted in the short grass. They chirped a little at each other but it seemed like they were just enjoying the sunshine as they stood in their respective spots for close to ten minutes. The adolescent launched first – I wanted to blur the wings in flight so I dragged my shutter. I’m still evaluating those results – we’ll see another day if I think they are worth sharing.
When the mature eagle lifted off the Prairie, I kept the shutter speed fast to freeze the motion and panned with the beautiful bird as it powerfully drove past.
When it buzzed a magpie that had also been sitting in the field, that bird flew up and in front of the eagle for a short ways. The eagle’s eyes were on this diminutive cousin of the raven and the crow but it was undeterred as it flew back towards its small convocation.
As it gained a little altitude, I liked the way the elements in the background looked in soft focus.
At one moment during this short flight it did look down at the field at one point – again raising my hopes of a dive – but nothing like that came of it.
Both eagles rejoined the other two that had remained in the tree. They all remained there for an hour before hunting over the fields individually later.
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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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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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Autumn Whiskey Jack
I love Gray Jays, also called Whiskey Jacks, and found a pair foraging for stray sides on a path in Kananaskis on the weekend. You will almost never see a lone jay, they are always found in a pair – I like that. Here, I caught this little one in mid-flight as it flew off a branch to the ground.
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Birding before dawn
It was too dark for the camera to expose the birds as they moved around so I used a flash set on low power to illuminate the Avocet swimming a few yards off the shoreline. The stilt found that quite intriguing and circled me on land and in the air a couple of times before I carried on towards the eastern glow.
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An owl’s launch
Last Friday I spent an hour watching a Great gray owl as it hunted in a bramble field west of Bragg Creek. This series is from a great launch where it stared right at me while leaping into the air before banking off to its left.
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A Great gray owl on the edge of the Kananaskis forest
Great gray owls blend into the forest effortlessly so it is easy to lose track of them. When I have a chance to photograph one flying through the trees it is very special for me. I discovered this owl while hiking a trail on the edge of the Kananaskis Country park area west of Bragg Creek. It stayed on the perch for a half an hour keeping track of other creatures nearby and following unusual noises around. I can’t count on which way a bird will launch when it does decide to fly so I was happy when this one flew in my direction and flew to my right. It climbed to a higher perch on the opposite side of the trail which is where I left it to its business.
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An owl in the muskeg
Muskeg is not a landscape that I think of owls hunting in but that is probably due to me not spending much time in them. The word is Algonquin for grassy bog and in the Bragg Creek area there are only I couple places that I visit which would qualify. On the weekend I was in one of these spots as they are a spring and summer haunt for moose. I was surprised to find a Great gray owl perched on one of the stubby trees.
I was using a long lens and was able to follow it as it flew around the bog landing in several spots. The last perch it settled on a weathered fence post. Despite being worn down and long out of any real service, it served as a good scouting tower for the owl.
Within a few minutes, she cocked her head a couple of times, raised her wings and then dove into the grass. On the ground, she hopped around a little bit and when she flew up to the post again had a mouse in her beak.
The owl fussed with the little creature for a few seconds to get the right grip. With the meal secure, she flew away from the muskeg and up into the open forest nearby.
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An evening in the forest
The owls have been spoiling me over the past couple of weeks so please forgive yet another Great gray post with images from these most wonderful birds!
I found this owl hunting deeper in the forest and then worked the fence line on either side of the gravel road I was on in West Bragg. After a mouse there, it moved out of the shadows and into the late day sunlight filtering through the forest. These photographs cover that time where he flew between trees and dove into a couple of grassy spots. All the effort yielded two more field mice and some great opportunities for me. After another hour passed, he flew towards a field as the sun dipped behind the hills across the valley and I headed home.
