In December 2014, I went on a five day trip to the Duluth, MN area to try my luck at photographing Great Gray and Snowy Owls while Gowri and Aditya went to India to visit her parents during winter break. These are two owls I'd been wanting to see for many, many years. On the first day of my trip, I hired Kim Risen (highest World Lister in 2004) as my guide to take me to the famous Sax Zim Bog which is one of the best places to see Great Gray Owls but there are no guarantees. We got very lucky in that the temperatures were in the 20s (very warm for this area!) and we found a pair of Great Grays hunting along the famous Admiral's road. For two hours, I was able to take many shots of Great Grays hunting along the road although we never actually saw an owl catch a vole. According to Kim, the problem may have been the the snow was very crunchy at the surface making it difficult for the owls to break through and catch a vole which is their main food source. In the days to come, Great Grays were not seen at Sax Zim perhaps moving on to a better hunting ground showing that we really did get very lucky to get such good looks. Apparently, Great Grays can be difficult to track down. The famous Big Year competition, that the movie was based on, resulted in Sandy Komito (e.g. Bostick in the movie) winning and he never saw a Great Gray that year. The picture above is just one of the many in flight and perched shots I got of this amazing bird. Apparently, its not easy to get looks like these without baiting the birds with mice which is something I didn't want to do (it's a controversial practice). Here are different sequences that I managed to see as the owls zoomed by right past me: (Sequence 1 Lo-Res) (Sequence 1 Hi-Res). It was even possible to get full frame shots: (Sequence 2 Lo-Res) (Sequence 2 Hi-Res). I got used to figuring out their flight path and finally got a full frame shot (the above shot) of him heading right at me: (Sequence 3 Lo-Res) (Sequence 3 Hi-Res). It was also possible to get perching shots with perfect contrast and to film some interesting behavior: (Sequence 4 Lo-Res) (Sequence 4 Hi-Res). Here are slideshows of these photos: (Slideshow).
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