Toggle navigation
All Photo Tours
Leaders
Trip Reports
FAQs
About Us
Contact
eNews
(206) 463-5383
Find a Tour
By Date
2023
October 2023
November 2023
December 2023
2024
January 2024
February 2024
March 2024
April 2024
May 2024
June 2024
July 2024
August 2024
September 2024
October 2024
November 2024
December 2024
By Region
Africa
Arctic & Antarctica
Asia
Central & South America
Europe
North America
Pacific
By Type
Bird
Cultural
Great National Parks of the World
Joe's Top Picks
Landscape
Ship-Based
Wildlife
Snowy Owls of the Canadian Prairies 2023 Trip Report
By Joe Van Os on Mar 27, 2023
View Slideshow
Much of the vast Canadian prairies have been “tamed” by agriculture. And starting in the 1950’s, the province of Alberta underwent a massive oil boom from which the petroleum industry further helped transform parts of the prairies into some of Canada’s biggest cities and help Alberta become the nation’s richest province.
It is from Calgary, in Alberta, where our February 2023 snowy owl photo safari commenced.
Residing in one convenient hotel, our group made daily forays into the surrounding countryside, concentrating on the wheat stubble-fields that had been previously harvested in early September. The extensive grid of dirt farm roads had been scouted a week earlier to look for likely areas where some of these nomadic birds had decided to spend the frigid prairie winter. To my untrained eye, the overall “habitat” looked bleak and uniform—but apparently not to the owls and the experienced eyes of our local guide who was able to locate 35 individual owls for us over our three days in the field.
The fields were snow covered. As much as I tried to spot a white bird sitting in white snow, if we were relying on me to find these cryptic predators, we would have only photographed those easy-to-find birds that perched atop the rows of telephone poles that stretched from distant farmhouse to distant farmhouse. Easier to spot were the occasional coyotes scavenging the fields, the massive flocks of snow buntings that were easy to see while in flight and the ravens that stood out in virtually every situation.
Rarely breeding at the same location or with the same mate, snowy owls leave their High Arctic nesting areas and wander just south of those expanses to spend the winter. But these owls are an irruptive species, sometimes unpredictably moving southward in substantial numbers where they may roam deep into the United States—especially along both coasts and into the prairies and farm country of the Great Plains states.
As for our group travels, in addition to hunting for owls we spent a short time photographing the nearby badlands landscapes, a few deserted farmsteads, and frosty vegetation along the roadside.
This trip would seem to be a big gamble trying to locate predictably unpredictable owls. But the area we worked in has been a magnet for these birds for years, possibly due to the numbers of mice and voles that thrive on the grain that is spilled during the harvest. At the end of a great trip, we were told that there are often as many as 60 snowy owls overwintering in this area, but numbers were possibly lower this year due to avian flu. Apparently wandering snowy owls utilize a lot of ducks as prey (who knew?) before settling into their winter territory. And waterfowl are notorious superspreaders of avian flu.
It is certainly a great experience seeing so many snowy owls in one short trip. In fact, this trip might account for about half of all the snowy owls I have seen in more than 50 years in the field.
Search for:
Trip Report Archive
November 2023 (
1
)
August 2023 (
1
)
July 2023 (
4
)
June 2023 (
3
)
May 2023 (
2
)
April 2023 (
3
)
March 2023 (
4
)
February 2023 (
3
)
January 2023 (
3
)
December 2022 (
4
)
November 2022 (
3
)
October 2022 (
2
)
August 2022 (
3
)
July 2022 (
1
)
May 2022 (
3
)
April 2022 (
2
)
March 2022 (
1
)
January 2022 (
4
)
November 2021 (
4
)
October 2021 (
1
)
September 2021 (
1
)
August 2021 (
3
)
May 2021 (
1
)
August 2020 (
1
)
April 2020 (
2
)
March 2020 (
1
)
February 2020 (
3
)
December 2019 (
2
)
November 2019 (
1
)
October 2019 (
2
)
September 2019 (
2
)
August 2019 (
2
)
July 2019 (
5
)
June 2019 (
6
)
April 2019 (
2
)
March 2019 (
1
)
February 2019 (
3
)
December 2018 (
1
)
November 2018 (
2
)
October 2018 (
2
)
August 2018 (
3
)
July 2018 (
1
)
June 2018 (
3
)
May 2018 (
4
)
April 2018 (
2
)
March 2018 (
6
)