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Summer Great Gray Owls – Photography Workshops

Photography by Rob McKay

Published on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 | Category: A Blog, Birds In-Flight, Birds Of Prey, Raptors, Canadian Bird/Avian, Guided Nature Wildlife Birding Tours Alberta, Owls, Workshops

We did a little bit of prairie swainson’s hawk shooting then headed north west in hopes to photograph great grey owls in-flight, that was the main goal of the trip. We arrived in the location a bit early for great gray’s, and a storm was brewing, dark, hail further east and then the rain came.
Started to worry that we would be done for by the weather when the sun suddenly popped out , and within min. after that we found an adult great gray owl hunting. He swooped over our heads with a freshly caught meadow vole and landed about 200 yards behind us. We went over and took a look, here he was with the vole, the great grey owl still wet from the storm, wings hanging low trying dry out.

Adult great gray owl drying off in the sun with meadow vole hanging from it beak

Wings open flying over a small meadow, a great gray owl inflight

We could hear what sounded like 2 to 3 fledglings 20 yards into the forest calling.
We ended up photographing the great gray owl hunting and bringing back food to the fledglings for a good hour, in good light.