There are magical moments in life … including one yesterday morning well before dawn. I watched this Great Gray Owl hunt in the pre-dawn light over Lake Superior with the Two Harbors lighthouse light blinking in the background. I like the period 30 to 45 minutes before sunrise because of the deep orange colors. Depending upon cloud conditions, I have found the reds and pinks tends to come 10 to 15 minutes before sunup.
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I left before the sun even rose above the horizon. I needed to drive north and refill the Greenwood Creek Birdfeeders. Here is a sequence of images and a movie of my special moment (video link for email subscribers)
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Great Gray Owl Hunts 35 Minutes Before Sunrise
Now in Sequence … my first view of the owl …
After 10 minutes the Great Gray moved to a pine tree
However, I really got excited when the owl moved to another tree in line with the lighthouse!
8 minutes later, I captured the pre-dawn takeoff. Notice the lighthouse is shining in the first photograph, but not the next three images. Total elapsed time for these four photographs is about 1/2 second. This is why one MUST use burst mode for photography. Lots of action happens in micro seconds.
The Movie!
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beautiful. our neighbor had a great-gray owl on her garage yesterday and saw it fly off. she was amazed at the length of the wings.