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Winter birding and the search for migratory snowy owls.

From November to February or March each year we are treated to an amazing phenomenon in western Canada and that is the sight of migratory snowy owls who winter in our regions. These are such special birds and listed as vulnerable due to the public interest in them. As a result birders are especially careful about not revealing sighting location details and often waiting until after they have left the area to even post images. This helps prevent large groups of people trying to find the birds and stressing them unnecessarily.

Anyone searching for these birds or photographing them needs to follow ethical birding practices in order to not cause stress to these or any birds. This includes things like using long lenses in order to keep your distance (i.e., anytime birds change what they are doing due to your proximity means that you are too close), not baiting with food or using sounds to attract their attention and exercising care when driving near these birds.

Being able to see a snowy owl in the wild is an amazing experience and being able to observe natural behaviours such as hunting, flying or roosting is very special. I have been fortunate to accidentally stumble upon an area frequented by snowy owls and I return annually to observe and photograph these amazing birds. (see my Snowy Owl for 2023 images).

Snowy owls are diurnal which means that they hunt during the daytime and are often more active at dawn and dusk. They can be found in farmer’s fields or on telephone poles during the daytime keeping a close eye out for prey.

Hunting consists of short flights low to the ground over a field with crop stubble - snatching up prey when they see it or hopping along the ground as they listen for movement under the snow cover.

Their main diet in the winter consists of meadow voles or white footed or deer mice.

The adult males are primarily white with adult females exhibiting dark banding (or barred markings) and juveniles (both male and female) being more heavily barred.

They enjoy the camouflage of snow covered fields where they can hide in plain sight.

The owls are about 1/2 meter tall with a wingspan of 1.5 meters - it is incredible to see them with their wings extended fully.

The females tend to be larger and heavier than the males.

Trip preparation

I planned for this trip a few weeks in advance and this meant watching weather forecasts to ensure safe driving and birding conditions. Packing layers of warm clothing, long lenses (200mm and 600mm lenses) along with a wider lens (24 - 120mm) for landscape shots as the sunrises and sunsets over the wide open fields are beautiful to see and photograph (little did I know that ice fog conditions meant no stunning sunsets, but that is photography - be prepared, but expect nothing).

I have learned that capturing amazing images is not the goal of these trips, but rather spending time in nature and witnessing sights that many people never get an opportunity to see. I also find that spending solitary time is great for reflection and thinking.

Once I find an owl in a good position, I will stay with the sighting to see what happens with the hope of capturing hunting behaviour or take off or flight images.

There is a very spiritual element to spending time with these owls which is difficult to explain. When I did a search for the meaning or significance of Snowy Owls, I came up with the following quote:

“White owls signify change, transformation, and inner wisdom.”

I found this especially interesting as I started looking for snowy owls when I was going through significant transition and transformation myself. Maybe there is something to me searching for them at this time as my quest for these owls is aligned with my personal journey.

Finding Snowy Owls - not so easy!

Looking for a snowy owl is a bit of an art as they are not as easy to see as you might think - especially during very foggy conditions. Usually they are nestled in the middle of snow covered fields (so white on white), but they are often found perched on top of snow mounds or other hill features to give them a leg up on looking for food. They can also be found perched on posts or power poles, but this doesn’t make for the best images.

I find that the best way to find them is to slightly defocus my eyes and look for something that doesn’t seem to belong in the landscape - either a white rounded form or a dark striped form and then I use binoculars to confirm whether it is in fact a snowy owl. Once I start looking for them it is amazing how often I can find them even when they are quite a distance away.

The first morning that I looked for them I started well before sunrise with a hope of seeing them early and undisturbed, but interestingly enough I only spotted one towards the end of the morning and it was some distance off in a field. I am not sure whether it is because they aren’t as active in the morning or whether I just wasn’t in the snowy owl sighting zone yet. In the afternoon I spotted seven of them over a pretty small area and it was wonderful to just stop and spend time watching them.

There is a definite lack of snow cover on the fields this year making them a bit easier to find.

I travel dirt range roads with little traffic so that I can pull way over to the side of the road and put on my hazard lights as I turn off the engine to prevent vibration as I photograph.

I am pleasantly surprised with the kind people who drive past me as nearly everyone stops to make sure that I’m ok and don’t need assistance.

As soon as I say snowies and they see my camera, each one invariably smiles and nods knowingly.

One fellow even volunteered that this was a great stretch of road as he always sees lots of them during his travels.

Learnings from this adventure

This is the second longer duration photography trip that I’ve done solo since retiring and I’m learning some very valuable lessons about myself. I really enjoy this solo time and I especially enjoy being able to immerse myself in something I love doing without having to worry about inconveniencing anyone or following someone else’s schedule (to be honest I suspect that this concern is mostly in my mind as my husband often offers to accompany me on birding adventures). This is pretty important to me as most of my work life has been about fitting into other peoples’ schedules and supervising large teams - not a lot of focused alone time. At first this feels selfish to me, but then as I settle down into my adventure it feels very liberating and fun. It is amazing how good it feels to let go of the noise and any negative messages running through my mind and just relax and enjoy being present in the moment.

Time spent out photographing birds or any trip of this sort has meant that I get some very focused time to reflect - there is a lot of downtime or boring time between bursts of photography and I actually am growing to enjoy this time as well. As things slow down it is amazing what goes on in my mind - at first I find a flurry of thoughts spinning around in my head - it’s like this chattering of dialogue that is sometimes difficult to decipher or keep up with.

Then as time elapses, it seems that the dialogue winds down and things start to quiet down. This is the golden time when suddenly thoughts will filter into my mind and just sit there as I think about them. This is when I find my best time for aha moments or pulling together various threads of thought into a more cohesive narrative. Sometimes this is when thoughts just evaporate and I am sitting in silence with nothing going on at all.

I don’t play the radio or listen to podcasts or books which is what I usually do when driving - that feels distracting and intrusive to my snowy owl quest. it is probably the longest time that I go without outside distraction.

Michael Easter in his book The Comfort Crisis talks about our constant need for distraction and how we’ve lost the art of being bored.

“Boredom is indeed dead. And one scientist way up north in Ontario, Canada, is discovering that this is bad. A type of bad that’s infected us all. He believes that our collective lack of boredom is not only burning us out and leading to some ill mental health effects, but also muting what boredom is trying to tell us about our mind, emotions, ideas, wants and needs.” (Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis)

Studies are also finding that boredom allows us to rest our focused brain and to allow for unfocused brain activity. This often leads to very creative thoughts and motivation to take action. So in fact boredom can help to spark creativity.

I am finding that this quiet time of boredom is proving to be invaluable - it is when time seems to slow down and I’m sure that my breathing calms and my heart rate slows along with my thoughts. A calmness fills me and instead of feeling bored or frustrated with nothing to do, I exit these quiet interludes feeling refreshed and more present and attuned to my surroundings.

There’s that being present theme again - I’m finding that it is becoming more important to me as the days of retirement stretch out before me. I want to savour and enjoy every minute of my life, whereas I recall a much younger me wishing for time to speed up so that I could finally be old enough to do something or other. Now time seems to pass far too quickly and I want each moment to fill my mind with rich experiences and memories and for that I need to be present.

Another season - another Snowy Owl migration

There is something very satisfying about the cyclic nature of seasons and animal behaviours. Being able to have insight into when and where snowy owls will congregate over winter is something to look forward to.

It helps me to feel grounded and that things are as they should be. I also recognize that there are changes going on in nature and in me which means that each year doesn’t look exactly the same as the last. An overabundance of lemmings in the arctic means a population surge for snowies and that I will likely see more than in other years, but a warm winter here can also mean that they do not travel as far south and I won’t see many. Nothing is predictable in nature.

As the season of snowy owls draws to a close for me, I am aware that a new cycle is getting ready to start. April brings the mountain bluebirds to our areas and I will be starting my bluebird nest box monitoring program again. In preparation I need to build some replacement boxes, clean out the old boxes on the trail and generally get things ready for the return of these birds.

In this way I am finding that matching my activities to cycles in nature is a great way of being more in tune and present with the world around me. Just observing these birds’ behaviours provides such insight and inspiration.

Are there any annual events or habits that you like to practice and what does this practice mean to your wellbeing? 

I hope you’ll come back soon, share a cuppa, relax and enjoy more of my musings.