Hunting Alberta Owls

I’ve had a few weeks in which I decided to get out and photograph whatever owls I could find before I head south. First and foremost I wanted to get pictures of some of our gorgeous Snowy Owls. Well, Kim and I headed out one afternoon in late November and YES! We found ourselves a lovely Snowy and so we happily snapped away and eventually headed home.

As a photographer, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but when I got home there were no pictures on my memory card! OMG!! I must have switched my card from my other camera and not reformatted my card. Worse, I think this has happened before (Yukon) and I just didn’t realize I had missed this step. NOTE TO SELF: NEVER FORGET THE REFORMAT! Is it just me????

Anyway, I went out the next day in hopes of finding my Snowy again and after an hour and a half I was about to give up and go home. I said to myself, “I’ll take this backroad and then head back to the highway” AND THERE SHE WAS!

You have no idea how excited I was. So excited that the following pictures are really the only ones that are even, in my opinion, any good. Many will have already seen these on my Facebook page so I hope I’m not boring you with them.

I saw this beauty on a fencepost to my left, slammed on my brakes, grabbed my camera and hopped out of the car. I thought she looked as happy to see me as I was to see her. BTW, I call this bird a she but she could be an immature male as well. Mature males are the ones you see that are pure or almost pure white. Females are speckled like the one above and immature males are speckled but often with a very dark brown.

She’s tired of me taking her picture now (and she needed to do a bit of business, which I have removed for your delicate eyes).

And off she goes!

I followed her for a while, getting as many pictures as I could of her in flight. This is the first owl in flight that I have taken. It worked out okay (purely luck) and I am still working on this skill but will still post ‘in flight’ photos, good or not.

MY FIRST SNOWY OWL!