Continuing the theme of yesterday’s Snowy Owl post…celebrating our local Snowy…here are a few shots of the bird in flight. Yesterday was bitter cold, especially for March. It is seven above zero as I write this, and though it got up into the 20s yesterday, the strong wind all day made it feel like one of the coldest days in this long winter. I went down to the marsh twice anyway. Our Snowy was there, in the morning…in a new spot…a low bush along the back of the dune. I managed my first half-way decent flight shot.

Half-way decent. 🙂 Enough to inspire me to brave the cold at the end of the day when the Owl is more active to try for more. I drove back down at 4:30. I froze, but I was certainly blessed by the Owl in flight. In the hour I was there it made 4 flights. From the ground to the tree, and the tree to the ground, and back again, etc, before flying across the marsh to settle first on the same bush where I saw it in the morning, and then on (I think) to the houses across the river on Great Head. By then both my feet and my hands were aching with cold…and I called it an evening.

I am still learning this new Olympus OM-D E-M10, so flight shots are a definite challenge. I have a combination of settings recommended on the Micro Four Thirds forum at dpreview, but I am still very much experimenting. The shots in this collage are heavily cropped, but the detail holds up pretty well from the 16mp M43 sensor. And I could not have asked for better light or a more cooperative bird.

Camera as above. 75-300mm Olympus zoom. 600mm equivalent. 9 point, continuous auto focus. Auto Image Stabilization. Auto ISO. These shots are ISO 200 @ 1/640th to 1/800th @ f7.1ish. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.

And again, I had an interesting human encounter. An artist who is visiting the marsh every day in his bright red truck to feed gulls and to draw and paint stopped after the owl’s first flight and we had a long talk about the beauty of the place and the bird and wonder of Snowy Owls and this Owl in particular.

So the blessing continues. I am sure, one of these days (when it is feeling warmer than it is this week so far) our local Snowy Owl will feel the pull of the tundra where it was born and head north, hopefully to breed and raise a clutch of new Snowies. Until then, I am certainly enjoying it’s acquaintance.