A winter storm hit the Duluth area this morning. Wind driven snow is being blown out of the Northwest at 29 mph. Now most people might think these are lousy conditions for birding, but for me it just increases the challenge. Since in Duluth photographing a polar bear in a blizzard is impossible, I looked for the next best thing … a Snowy Owl. I will admit a bit of luck was involved in capturing this image. The wind and snow abated a touch for a few minutes, and during this respite the owl I was watching telegraphed to me it was about to take off. The strong wind meant of was able to take quite a few photographs as the bird had to flap its wings quite a few times to get moving forward.

Before the storm hit last night I went up the shore a bit and found this Great Gray Owl hunting at sunset. Although the light conditions were very dark due to the heavy clouds and light freezing rain, I was still able to get some neat images. Don’t be afraid to run the ISO up on your camera. These owl photographs were taken with an ISO of 3,200. In both the flight shot for each owls, the wings are a bit blurry. This adds to the impression of motion, but it is important to still have image focused correctly … in this case the eyes.