With my wife finally changing to a job with weekends off, the first thing I’ve been looking forward to is heading North in winter to Michigan’s beautiful UP to see some Owls, get some life birds and hopefully come home with some killer photographs (not to mention a nice getaway with Kara!)  After months of work on Dad’s new house and all of life’s other road bumps, last weekend came with the outlook for sunny skies and cold weather; perfect!

We headed up late Friday night and started our adventure early Saturday morning.  Saturday morning started at -16F, damn cold!  Many know I was in my element and Kara braved it although the truck was a nice haven for us both.

All in all we found 1 Northern Hawk Owl and 6 individual Snowy Owls including a stunning Adult Male (below).  Most of the Owls were perched high hunting from good vantage points.  At some points, Ravens would find the birds and harass them but for the most part, the birds didn’t mind all the activity around them.  With the great lighting, one could spot the birds from quite a ways away.

Our life birds for the trip totaled 2; Sharp-Tailed Grouse and Bohemian Waxwing.  The Bohemian Waxwings have been one of those birds we’ve had trouble with for the last couple years.  We’ve chased them on a few different occasions with no luck so it was a wonderful sighting Sunday morning.

Photographically, it was an amazing trip given the day and a half of shooting.  The primary goal was for Snowy Owl flight shots and we had a few opportunities for just that including some very cold sessions waiting and waiting.  In a couple of those cases, patience did pay off.  We finished Sunday in the UP around 1:00pm when clouds started to move in and ruin the AMAZING lighting we had up to that point.

Keep near the blog for the next lesson in our series of tips & tricks (Lesson 3, Exposing properly at High ISO: Techniques for obtaining larger depth of field without losing shutter speed)

NOTABLE BIRD SPECIES:
Snowy Owl (6 Individuals): Rudyard Flats (Hantz Rd. & Centerline Rd.)
Northern Hawk Owl (1): Riverside Dr. just North of 13 Mile Rd.
*SHARP-TAILED GROUSE (14): Corner of Riverside Dr. & 10 Mile Rd.
Pileated Woodpecker (2): 1 at the Hawk Owl spot above, 1 on 3 Mile Rd.
*BOHEMIAN WAXWING (12): Dunbar Forest, near boat launch
Pine Grosbeak: Dunbar Forest, near boat launch
Bald Eagle (1 adult): Rudyard Flats (Hantz Rd.)
Rough-Legged Hawk (many): Riverside Dr (8 Mile Rd. to 15 Mile Rd.)