15 minutes before sunrise, I struck paydirt! November 15th is a bit early to find a Snowy Owl in the Duluth area, but who is complaining. It was a great morning. Taking a photograph this long before sunup is a bit challenging. Thankfully owls tend to often sit very, very still. Even with a rather motionless subject and an ISO setting of 1,600, I could only get an exposure setting of 1/40th of a second. However by sunrise the owl was calling it quits for the day and no longer hunting.

Took a hike at sunrise looking for Snowies. Found ice music and these mallards!

Around 4 pm this afternoon I found a Snowy Owl. For twenty minutes I watched as it slowly awakened and became more alert. A bit after 4:20 pm the Snowy flew 300 yards away and landed on a large snow bank. In a few moments it stretched its head, in what I thought was in preparation to pounce on some unsuspecting vole.

Wrong! There was another Snowy Owl about 100 yards away and suddenly an owl fight was in progress. There was a definite disagreement as to the border of the winter hunting territories! It was super cool to watch, and impossible to photograph as the combination of low light and acrobatics in the air rendered my camera useless. I did capture these images of the take-off, and a final photograph of the victor. Even these photos were tough given the low light.  After defeating the other bird, the Snowy Owl returned to the same exact snow pile.

I totally intend to be back to check on these two owls. I don’t believe this altercation is over, and I know their territory dividing line!