Again we interrupt our usual chronological order to bring you late-breaking photos.

For the past week, there have been reports of Snowy Owls coming in from around the Vancouver coastal areas. I'd never seen a Snowy Owl, so I've been hoping to get a chance to go find and photograph one. But when the weekend came, it was all rainy...rain and cameras don't mix too well.

On Sunday, though, I heard that there might be a break in the rain in the afternoon, so in the early afternoon I went down to 72nd Street to try to find the Snowy Owl that had been hanging out in the bay near there. The bird photography gods must have been smiling on me, as the rain stopped almost exactly when I arrived, and upon mounting the dyke I found Len Jellicoe standing there with his spotting scope. I didn't know Len, but I'd emailed with him a couple of times. We chatted a bit and then introduced ourselves. He was watching some coyotes stalking a Great Blue Heron in the bay. He said that the Snowy Owl was out there; I found it in my binoculars and in a minute Len brought it up in his scope. Both Len and the owl were lifers for me.

I wanted to get photos of the owl, so as Len left I walked east on the dyke to near the closest point to the owl. I had on my rubber boots, as I was expecting to have to go out on the foreshore to get within decent camera range. I headed off the dyke and picked my way across the treacherous driftwood zone, where it'd be child's play to sprain an ankle. Once on the other side of the driftwood, I set down my tripod and took some photos of the owl. Here is the full-frame version of one of them.

Well, you can tell he's looking left, but that's about it.

Len had said that the owl had spooked when some hunters had walked by at about 100 meters from it. I figured that I was well outside that distance, and decided to try to get closer.

So I slowly started working closer to the owl. Stalking a bird like this involves moving slowly and letting the bird become accustomed to your presence. I tend to take ten to twenty-five slow steps at a time before stopping and resetting my tripod. I don't walk directly towards the bird, and I don't watch the bird as I walk, or even when I stop. Birds are aware if you're watching them. So I was taking slow steps, careful not to step in water that was too deep (I came within about two inches of flooding my rubber boots). I was also being very careful to not look like a duck or a goose, as there's a hunting season on, and some hunters like to hunt in the bay.

To make a (two-hour-)long story short, I kept working closer to this bird, and eventually was able to get to probably about 40 meters distance before deep water stopped me. Here's a full-frame (25%) photo from that distance.

It was a little bit blurry, but clearly a Snowy Owl.

It seems that Snowy Owls don't show up here every year. Every five or seven years or so, there's a Snowy Owl year, and bunches of them are seen. Reports today are that about seven of them have been found, so this is one of those years. Folks say that there will probably be lots more that show up later in the year. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get even closer to one.

Here's one where he's doing that Exorcist "turn your head 180 degrees to the rear" thing.

Soon after this photo, as I was working my way around him, he flew a little further out onto a log in the bay. I'm not sure I caused him to move, or something else; I was taking a few steps trying to circle around and wasn't watching him when he took off.

So, I headed back in. As I was changing back into my running shoes at my car, Walter Ammann and Colin Clasen happened along. They're local birders; Colin was a lifer for me, but I know Walter. I stayed for a few minutes with them on the dyke, pointing out the owl where it was now perched. Several other birders also arrived, and I headed off in search of my first meal of the day as the flock of birders headed east along the dyke.

Feelin' owly,
Tom