I wasn’t planning on Bogging it today, but my buddy Jeff M. wanted to go owling. How could I resist? By 6:15 am I was out the door and “bog bound”. Our morning was pretty slow, but after a late breakfast / early lunch we struck gold. We found a Northern Hawk Owl within yards of where I had seen it a few days previously. Owls are like fishermen; in the winter if they find a good hunting spot it is amazing how often they return to hunt from the same exact trees.

Although there was a decent snow flurry in progress, the owl was kind enough to land with a bunch of tamarack pines as a backdrop (white skies are boring). Thus, I decided it was worth slogging through the deep snow in an attempt to get some good images. I think my friend Jeff thought I was crazy because at times I had to wade through snow up to my mid thigh.

Eventually I approached close enough to the owl that I was comfortable some great photography would entail, but even more importantly I would not flush or stop the owl from hunting. I was correct on all accounts. My method for approaching the owl was to slowly walk about five yards forward … stop and wait for a few minutes … and then repeat many times. My goal was to appear harmless, which was successful. Take a look at the photograph taken immediately below, which represented my closest approach to the Northern Hawk Owl (about 30 yards). Here is a pic of me in action (photo taken by Jeff). Look for the small bird in the tree towards the center top of the image (may need to click / press upon to view at a larger resolution).

Just importantly I never flushed the owl. This photograph is the last the image I took. The owl is totally ignoring me as it hunts for mice and voles. When I left this bird, I actually backed up very slowly … once again about five yards at a time with multiple pauses. Eventually I turned and retraced my steps through the snow.

Here are the photographs I captured. Pretty cool?! A Northern Hawk Owl is about the size of raven.