Male Snowy Owl WHITEOUT

Here’s a male Snowy Owl in a blizzard; it’s a white bird flying in the snow in a snow covered field. I really needed those eyes to make something visually compelling.

With the snow falling and wind howling from our backs, frost on my glasses and in my viewfinder, I realized that there was no way I could have focused and followed the owls in flight without the awesomeness of the Sony Auto-focus system. I simply kept the green boxes (the green focus confirmation boxes that locked onto the owl’s eyes) in the middle of the viewfinder, and the Sony a9 II Camera did the rest!

Global warming affecting bird photography golden light

Chasing the light is synonymous with nature photography; we are always up early and on the move to carefully planned locations filled with the hope of glorious light. How then, does global warming mess-up our plans? Global warming has left the great lakes warmer and without ice cover which produces evaporation causing lake effect cloud and often lake effect snow. This typically means we have cloud cover when the sun is at it’s prime for photographs; at sunrise and sunset. My first group was blessed with some sublime light early in the Owl season, and I recall only a few glorious sunrises or sunsets since then so far this winter. The coldest morning so far was only -21C (Jan. 19, 2020) in Southern Ontario and not the expected -35C low that usually settles in for a week each January.