Yesterday morning started with ships and sea smoke 40 minutes before sunrise off Lake Superior’s Splitrock Lighthouse. The day ended with the 60 minutes prior to sunset with a royal Snowy Owl Flush… both a beautiful female and male! By the time I got home I was thoroughly frozen. With the temperature hovering around 0F (-18F), even with decent gloves it is impossible to keep the hands warm. While it was much colder during my morning sea smoke photoshoot (-18F or -28C), when photographing owls there is a lot of waiting for action which is when one gets bone cold.

Snowy Owl Take-Off (female or first year male)

Sleepy … or laughing at me Snowy Owl (male)

The male Snowy even slept through a diving attack from the female pictured first in this blog post. It was too cool to be bothered.

Great big mounds of plowed snow gave me the ability to almost see “eye to eye” with the owls. Was fun being up at their level 10 to 12 feet off the ground… but still a bit distant. My Canon Sx70 has a 65x optical zoom, which is a 1365 35mm equivalnet. On bright, sunny days the super zooms work very nicely.

The gift of sight is precious. Late yesterday afternoon I drove myself over to Superior, Wisconsin in search of Snowy Owls … let me repeat that fact … I drove MYSELF over to the owling grounds.  While my doctor had told me not to expect the BOTOX injections for Blepharospasm to be effective till after seven days, I apparently am one of the lucky individuals where the drug works quickly. Snake venom is now blocking the miscommunication between my brain and eyes.

I can see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was the first time I have driven a car in two months. I also took a hike while it was still sunny and bright (impossible just five days ago). I traipsed through the deep snow in  the forest near my home on deer trails … easily seeing deadfall and stepping over same. I was searching for my local Great Horned Owls. This morning as I create this post at 7:15 am, my local owls are hooting away at me!  Nature is welcoming me back to its world of wonder. While the battle with Blepharospasm will now be a life long war, it appears as if I will have a life worth living which includes the gift of sight.

Here is one of the two Snowy Owls I found at the Superior Railroad yards. While the photo opportunity was not grand (blah skies and location), for me the image capture was one of the happiest of my life. Perhaps this female Snowy is yelling to the other nearby owl: “The gigs up … I think he sees us!” (Location … power poles south of the intersection of Hill Ave. and 24th Ave. E.)

For the first time in four days the sun came out yesterday, and after all of our nasty weather, I hoped our local Snowy Owls might come out before sunset. Basically I thought these birds would be hungry, and that state of being will occasionally make nocturnal owls hunt before sundown. Molly was nice enough to drive me over to Superior, and we arrived at 3 pm … 90 minutes before sunset. I was wrong! The Snowies were sleeping, and showed no signs of waking up till just a bit before the golden orb dropped below the horizon.

With all that said, it was a magical late afternoon / early evening. As we were driving home post sunset I spied a beautiful almost sheer white male Snowy Owl. Females have more dark barrings in their plumage as camouflage for when they nest on the ground up in the Arctic tundra. As I was walking back to the car after photographing this bird, I turned to look at the male Snowy one more time. Uff dah! My new position revealed I might be able to photography the owl in front of the crescent moon. Yup!

Crescent Moon Snowy Owl

My earlier vantage point for this Snowy had been utilized to maximize what little light was left in the sky … the sun was down but still behind me. I pushed up the ISO to get some nice photographs.

Snowy Owl (male) at sunset

Same Owl … grooming at sunset

The other Snowy Owl I saw was this nice female. While taking photographs of the bird in the setting sun, I made the mistake of glancing down. I wanted to change camera settings as I suspected the Snowy would finally fly to its first hunting perch of the evening. Right idea, wrong execution. By the time I glanced back up 10 seconds later, the owl was gone. Given the wings of owls make zero sound, it’s silent flight did not alert me. I had been watching this owl off and on for over 30 minutes. I have no idea where it flew. Oh well … seeing two Snowy Owls in one evening is special.

Snowy Owl (female) just before sunset