This series turned out to be a miss for the Great Grey Owl. But, during the hour I watched, this raptor was successful four times!
It was a Day of Great Greys
The predawn, partly cloudy skies soon filled up with snow flurries as I crossed over the Laurentian Divide on the way down to the Bog. Inclement weather, my favorite to photograph in!
Although there was snow, the wind stayed down, and owls were out and about. This 18 second video shows how the morning began.
Although I meant to head home in the early afternoon, the lure of more Great Greys kept me in the Bog until dark.
Let the New Year Begin!
With 2015 here and a Raptor exhibit beginning in just a few months, Sax-Zim Bog seemed like the best place to start the new year. It didn’t take more than a few passes along Admiral Road until a Great Grey Owl was spotted in the trees. Not sure which car was the first to stop, but I worked my way up to the few folks that were setting up their gear. Although this beauty was on the sunlit side of the road, it really was just a touch too low to be basking in its full glory. The entire encounter lasted less than five minutes before the owl flew deep into the woods.
Driving farther down the road, the sun was just beginning to set. What a beautiful ending to the first day of a new year!
Root River Photography’s Year in Review
First of all, a huge thank you to the folks at the International Wolf Center who brought my Aurora exhibit to life! If you have yet to see it, the exhibit runs through May 11, 2015.
January 1st was spent on Lake of Woods photographing the northern lights in -40˚F.
The time-lapse video “Dance of Enchanted Light” is currently showing at the International Wolf Center in the gallery adjacent to the Aurora exhibition. The entire video is 2000 images from that night on Lake of the Woods.
Here is a link to it on my facebook page. Watch in HD for better quality. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=732181403470373&set=vb.195444223810763&type=3&theater
Other January fun included making soap bubbles in -27˚F,
along with photographing Flying Squirrels!
The middle of January through mid-March was spent observing and capturing the flight patterns of the beautiful Snowy Owl.
“The Joy of Winter” made its way into my heart when a friend alerted me to the fact that she had a Canadian Lynx sleeping in her woods. Spending two hours watching it from her dining room window is an experience I will probably never forget!
February 18/19 brought about one of the best aurora displays of 2014! This one is captured with a fisheye lens.
March and April were filled with many trips to Sax-Zim Bog to photograph winter birds. A favorite is this Great Grey Owl image titled “Snowy Perch”.
At the beginning of May, Mother Nature made certain to show us we can not rely on calendar dates when it comes to predicting the seasons.
June provided the best experience to date. Thanks to a friend, I was given the opportunity to photograph Northern Hawk Owls and their young for nine straight days! Granted, the mosquitos almost carried us away, but the knowledge and images gained from that time in the field was worth every single bite received.
July brought the beauty of flowers! A first for me was Minnesota’s state flower, the Showy Lady’s-slipper.
August was another wonderful month for Auroras!
September into October was Yellowstone and Grand Teton!!! Yep, three exclamation points! I have only begun processing the images from that trip. As much as I will fall in love all over again with the critters and landscapes, nothing can supersede the fact that I got to spend ten days showing my parents around my favorite place. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly what they were expecting, but they got it! More so, they got me! They had the opportunity to see ME in my favorite place doing what I truly LOVE! Pictures can not even begin to describe the experience, so here is simply one of the few favorites I’ve already processed.
Adrenaline Rush – Bull Moose in Grand Teton National Park
November brought winter back to Minnesota.
And… December is going out with a BANG!
Warp Speed auroras at -20˚F.
Thanks for following along through facebook, exhibits, shows & the website!
2015 is going to bring exciting new challenges, more exhibits, and advanced technology in photography!
Happy New Year!
Chapter 2
Bird’s Eye View
Traditionally it’s a drive down Hwy 89 from Livingston, in through the park entrance. It just feels right! Making my way from Mammoth, over Dunraven Pass, through Hayden Valley and past Fishing Bridge… the park is dead quiet. Barely a car in sight, and not an animal beyond the far away bison herds to be seen. Until my car makes the curve just past Steamboat. Not only do I recognize the vehicle pulled off along the side of the road, it’s a lens I know by sight. Unmistakable! I smile, roll down my window and start photographing the beautiful Swainson’s Hawk sitting in the tree.
Heck, I didn’t know how long my friend had been waiting for it to “pose” in the beautiful sunlight like that. Breast feathers illuminating as it tilts its head looking for food. So I wait and shoot and observe. Beautiful! As it takes flight landing in a distant tree, I make my way over to Steve and the conversation begins! We shoot and chat for over an hour. What a fantastic beginning to this day!
Chapter 1
So this is where it all begins? Among the Prairie Dogs and Scat?!
Well kind of! Thanks to my friend Dan Cooke for suggesting to me years ago, that Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the perfect place to stop between the Twin Cities and Yellowstone, I haven’t been able to pass it by since! Even though we live much farther away now… that is indeed where my images usually begin!
But, this time, we had the BIG CME coming our way! You know… the one “they” were predicting would be seen from Wisconsin to New York!!!
I planned my route with a headful of ideas where to photograph this epic event along the way! By the time I hit Grand Rapids, MN (2 hours from Babbitt), I called my friend Bob and he took me to a little lake (insert name here) to see if we could catch even a glimpse of this now dwindling-by-the-second event…
The night was indeed full of color, but I’m not sure how much of that was really an aurora glow.
We gave an old spruce bog a try, getting just a hint of color along the horizon. From there I decided to make my way into the night driving until I got tired.
As dawn broke, I made my way down to this small lake I decided to sleep along side. Watching the sun burn off the rising mist was the perfect beginning to this much anticipated road trip!
As I reached Theodore Roosevelt National Park later that afternoon, there was no question in my mind that I would be stopping! It’s probably the lure of finding feral horses stomping about the hillsides that really draws me in. And although I did not see any on this trip, the bison, prairie dogs, and mule deer did their best to keep me entertained!
The park was full of coyote that day. This one in particular stood still long enough for me to make an image or two. In fact, had it not moved I may have thought someone placed a stuffed critter out in the field.
Not to be outdone by the beauty of this land creature, an incredible hawk now was catching the glow of afternoon light. It didn’t even cross my mind that I was following in a line behind a pilot car through a construction zone… this raptor caught my attention and the nearest pullout was just up ahead! Watching it soar above the painted hills was well worth the disappointed look I’d receive from the pilot car driver as I made my way back through the work zone. Clearly, it was time for me to get back on the highway!