Going into this year, I had never taken a satisfying picture of a Snowy Owl. I had seen several: three, mabye, at Biddeford Pool; one at Plum Island (Parker River NWR); and one at Nubble Lighthouse. I have a few poor shots of the Nubble bird, but nothing I would want to share with anyone. This invasion year, of course, there are Snowy Owls in just about every Eastern-seaboard state, and all out across the northern tier. I have, litterally, hundreds of satisfying shots…if not yet anything as spectacular as a head on, close up, Owl in flight…still lots of images I would willingly share (and have shared).

We even have our neighborhood owl, who has frequented the marsh at the mouth of the Mousam River, just a bit over a mile down the road from our house, for several months now. I was beginning to resign myself to the likelihood that our local Owl had headed north. I had not seen it since the day I finally got my first decent flight shots, now nearly 2 weeks ago. A few people who frequent the marsh area more often than I do had claimed it was still around, but I certainly could not find it in my daily visits. And then yesterday I drove along the ocean in Kennebunk to see if the monster nor’easter passing offshore was kicking up any photogenic waves (it was not) and stopped at the marsh, more or less for the form of thing, without any real hope. And there he was (I will do a post one of these days on why I decided this particular Owl is a “he”…though “she” is about 3 times as likely). The Snowy Owl was hunkered down against the 50 mph wind gusts in the lee of small dune-like rise the marsh, well buried in the grasses, but about as close to the road as I have seen it. The light was terrible, and the wind was enough to blow me flat, but of course I had to take a few shots.

Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent plus digital 2x extender for 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/800th @ ISO 320 @ f7.1. Shoot using my bean-bag monopod. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Cropped slightly for composition.