Snowy Owl Final Approach

A Snowy Owl on final approach in fresh snow from my recent Winter Owl Prowl. I got down low and used my Wimberley MH-100 MonoGimbal Head on a monopod. If you missed it, be sure to check out the review by clicking on the button below:

Snowy Owl Silhouette

A silhouette from my recent Owl workshop. I pushed the black point, white balance and saturation to make it more dramatic and add visual impact. It was a fun morning with a great group and everyone got down low to work the rising sun as the clouds parted.

Aging and Sexing Snowy Owls

This is a male Snowy Owl being blown off balance in high winds. There is no shortage of folks who misidentify Snowy Owls age and sex; including the experts. If you would like to immerse yourself, here is a link to a 1980 report called AGING AND SEXING SNOWY OWLS by Bertie Josephson.

“The darkest birds are likely to be first-year females, whereas adult males always have very light plumage. However, the two remaining classes, first-year males and adult females, are intermediate in plumage characteristics and are less easily distinguished by means of plumagee. Because relatively light plumage may indicate a male bird or an adult, and dark plumage may characterize a female or a bird in its first basic (first-year) plumage, it is difficult to age Snowy Owls unless sex is known and vice versa.”

— Bertie Josephson

Boreal Owl a la Sony 200-600

There have been a few Boreal Owls around this winter; It really is rewarding to find one in a forest, more so when it is on a clean perch. After everyone in my group got images, we discovered a Northern Saw-whet Owl within about 10 meters (30 feet) and both were at eye level and showing nicely.

Sony 200-600mm Lens Love

Sony 200-600mm Love

If you have been reading about the Sony gear that I used for the last series of blog posts, you know I used the Sony 600mm f/4 GM OSS Lens & Sony FE 1.4X Teleconverter. The truth is, it seems I have to force myself to use the prime gear since I got the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens which is such an incredible lens when paired with my Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless camera. It’s not just the auto-focus; The lens is so easy to manage, versatile and so convenient to carry around on my Black Rapid Sport strap.

Snowy Owl Great Lakes only 13% Ice coverage

After the sweet morning light turned harsh, we watched this Snowy Owl chase a Red-breasted Merganser for what seemed like a few minutes. It finally dove on the fleeing Merganser and killed it too far away for pictures.

With recent cooler weather and recent significant snowfalls, Lake Ontario is finally starting to freeze. I have been monitoring the ice coverage of the great lakes, and the news is not good. On February 10, 2020 NOAA found that the great lakes had only 13% ice coverage. This is alarming when compared to 55.7% last year and 71.9% the year before.

NOAA Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis comparison on February 10, 2020. CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO NOAA WEBSITE WITH LARGER IMAGE.

Snowy Owl a la RMT-P1BT Bluetooth Remote

There was light freezing rain that caused a thin layer of ice over the freshly fallen snow. I love the way the talons are gripping the ice as this young female Snowy Owl takes flight.

I had my Sony a9 II Camera body, Sony 600mm f/4 GM OSS Lens, Sony FE 1.4X Teleconverter mounted on my Wimberly Head II all ready, with my Sony RMT-P1BT Wireless Remote Commander tucked into my mitten and ready for the blastoff; so nice to keep my hands warm inside my mitts when triggering my camera via the bluetooth remote!

Snowy Owl Calling

Snowy Owls are usually quite silent during the winter, but they do occasionally make loud, high-pitched, blood-curdling screams; usually, the result of another Snowy Owl encroaching on their winter territory.

For Sony a9/a9II & a7RIII/a7RIV users out there, I recently discovered the Newmowa USB powered double battery charger; it’s a small charger that simultaneously charges two NP-FZ100 batteries. This is not a fast charger (good for battery health), as it’s charge speed is dependent upon the power delivered by your USB power source. In my constant quest to pack less and lighten my load while traveling, this little charger can charge both batteries overnight and occupies less space than a single Sony NP-FZ100 charger.

Snowy Owl in Golden Light

As the temperature falls, the odds of getting great light increases dramatically. Here’s another Snowy Owl flying in the first rays of sunlight over fresh powdery snow.

Snowy Owl GROUND FX

18 inches of fresh snow, a first year female Snowy Owl and the very fist golden drops of morning light; life is worth living to the fullest!

We watched this Snowy Owl hunt and drop her prey before landing on a telephone pole, so we set up and waited for her to return and reclaim her prize. After sitting for almost an hour, she suddenly dove and sprung the trap we had set.

Male Snowy Owl

Here’s a much different take on the Snowy Owl. I usually post images in flight, but let’s face it; most of their time is spent sitting still and conserving energy. In Southern Ontario and Quebec, they like the view from the top of telephone poles, despite there being no tall perches in the tundra where they spend most of their time.

Snowy Owl a la Sony a9II high ISO

Here’s a Snowy Owl image from the Sony a9 II Camera body with the Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 G Master OSS Lens at 20,000 ISO. The details are remarkable! The key is to expose to the right (Keep the whites all the way to the right hand side of the histogram, but make sure they don’t touch) and try not to crop. This is a full frame image without noise reduction applied.

Male Snowy Owl Blast-off

Here’s another Male Snowy Owl blasting-off in high winds and blowing snow. We had to get down as low as possible to include the out of focus scrub along the fence line which slightly darkens the otherwise white background and helps make the fine snow visible.

Owl’s eye view of my third group of happy photographers during my in Winter Snowy Owl Photo Tour in Ontario, Canada. Image Copyright ©Christopher Dodds. iPhone 11 Pro Max 1/2 zoom a la Snapseed B&W conversion.

Snowy Owl HANGTIME

With the warm weather, the snow in the fields had melted and the disk tilled fields were soggy, to say the least. Our boots collected clay that got ridiculously heavy and extremely slippery. Needless to say, we welcomed the change in temperature and heavy snow - smile.

When photographing in the snow, it is really easy to determine the correct exposure; I usually set the aperture to wide open (f/2.8 in this case), decide my minimum acceptable shutter speed (1/4,000s in this case) and then adjust my ISO so that the light meter reads plus 1 & 2/3 spot off the snow in front of me. A quick test image will show the histogram pushed all the way to the right, but not touching the right side; exactly where the whites are supposed to reside to extract maximum details.

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.

Snowy Owl Last Light a la Sony RMT-P1BT Wireless Remote Commander

I photographed this Snowy Owl in the severe cold during the very last moments of the sun recently. As a long time sufferer of Raynaud's syndrome, keeping my hands warm is of paramount importance during my Snowy Owl workshops. I typically use big & warm mitts with several hand warmers to keep my fingers warm. Although I have mastered how to control my camera with the mitts on, it takes a lot of practice and I do miss the occasional shot.
The Sony RMT-P1BT Wireless Remote Commander came in useful while set-up on this Snowy Owl, waiting for it to open its eyes and look at the camera. With the Remote Commander tucked into my mitt, I was able to trigger the camera via Bluetooth without taking my hands out of the warm mitts.
While it is true that a wired controller would have worked just as well to trigger the camera, it is connected to the camera with a wire that is prone to get tangled in my extensive cold-weather gear, and since it is wired, I would have to leave it attached to the camera in the cold anytime I moved away; this means putting the frozen device back into my warm mitts and defeating my efforts to keep my fingers warm.

Snowy Owl Touchdown

“Talking to Chris, he mentioned he has had several customers attend more than one workshop. Now I understand why. We had a small group, so there was plenty of time to really talk about many things and make sure everyone understood. I’ve spent so much money and time on gear, books and “camera user guides”, but I still didn’t really understand. Before I left, I anticipated learning how to properly expose for snow, etc. If you had dropped me off in front of one of the owls, I would not have been able to get the shots I wanted exposed properly. What I didn’t realize was that I would finally learn how to evaluate the scene and determine the correct exposure, whatever the subject, situation, scene or light level. Now I finally have the answers to so many questions ... I finally understand exposure theory! I’m from Alabama, so an unexpected treat was to learn how to deal with the cold temperatures. It got down to -9° F while we were there.

As a testimonial, I most definitely plan to attend another workshop with Chris. Now I’ve just got to decide where I want to go. ”

— Rhett Gibson Alabama, USA

Snowy Owl LIFTOFF

“I wanted to thank you for a wonderful owling trip last week. It was great to be in the field with you and I learned a great deal about the birds, environment and my camera. Thanks so much for being such a great naturalist, photographer and trip leader. I will go on another trip with you in the future.”

— Lynda Goff Santa Cruz, CA (Professor Emeritus Ecology & Evolutionary Biology UC Santa Cruz)