Snowy Owls, Pt. II - 24 Mar 2018

Skies were clear again this morning, and chilly, with a bit more wind than last week. I grabbed the bike and headed to Point Mouillee, but this time parked at Siegler Rd. That way, I could ride out to the Banana Unit and (hopefully) keep the sun behind me as I worked my way south and west across the SGA. The ground was dry and riding was not too difficult.

I reached the junction of Long Pond and Vermet Units and found the first Snowy Owl of the day. It was on the North Causeway ahead of me, and per usual, severely backlit. It flew along the causeway ahead of me before landing on one of the unit markers. It stayed a while and allowed a decent approach, but lighting wasn't good, so I didn't mind when it flew off across the Vermet Unit.

I continued on around Cell 5 toward the lake and decided to see what the east side of the SGA would bring. A good chop was on Lake Erie, so there wasn't much in the way of waterfowl. The Huron River mouth held a good number of Greater and Lesser Scaup, Canvasback, Redhead, Northern Shoveler, and Ruddy Ducks. The first of six Horned Grebes were spotted in the northeast corner of Cell 5, while dozens of scaup retreated before me.

I spotted Snowy Owl #2 up ahead on one of the large water tanks near the east dike of the Vermet. It was relaxing after a meal (note the blood drops on its right leg) and enjoying the morning sun. I made sure to approach slowly so as not to disturb it. I would spend better part of 30 minutes approaching it while digiscoping from the edge of the trail.

The trick was to wait until the owl turned its head in the opposite direction, then take 2 steps forward and stay behind the scope. It took awhile, but allowed me to get within 150' so that I could get some nice digiscoped images and videos.

I have a preset on my Sony a6300 that allows more accurate autofocusing when I'm digiscoping using the camera's autofocus feature. This involves setting Contrast and Saturation to high settings so that the camera can more accurately center-focus (see my digiscoping article for more details). When I took this video it came out really Saturated, but did a wonderful job keeping sharp focus while the bird looked around in the blowing wind. I reduced the Saturation in Photoshop before rendering the video, so it came out very nice.

The owl eventually flew off into the open construction field at the north end of Cell 5 and perched on a dirt mound. I would spot 2 other Snowy Owls on separate dirt mounds in the same area, as well as another Snowy on the outflow pipe in the NE corner of Cell 5.

As I reached the NE corner of Cell 5 and began to scope that owl, Bruce Szczechowksi approached from the North Causeway and we spent a few minutes chatting. He would end his day with 10 Snowy Owls, while I would only see 6. Only...

We spend a few minutes watching the Snowy Owl ahead of us before it flew off along the shoreline and landed on the east shoreline of Cell 5. I continued on toward Cell 3  with the idea of looking for the Snowy Owl I saw last week on the tractor in the southeast corner. Winds were picking up, and I knew the ride back was not going to be fun.

As I rode around the NE side of Cell 3 and headed south along the shoreline, the large tractor came into view. I stopped the bike and got off long enough to put the binoculars on the tractor. No owl. Bummer. However, as I got on the bike and began riding, a Snowy Owl flushed from the rocks to my left - not 10 feet from where I was standing! All I could do was make eye contact with it as it rose up in a panic and fly back south. Right back to the tractor.

Determined not to flush it again I made sure to stay back and digiscope it from a safe distance. I was able to get close enough to see the blood on its face. I'm presuming a fresh meal, but wonder if it had an encounter with another owl?

I knew that riding past it would flush the bird again, so I continued on along the shoreline to the south end of Cell 2 before heading back west toward the Humphries Unit. Sure enough, the wind greeted me as I reached east side of the Humphries, and the wind was strong enough put a decent ripple on the waters. I spent some time scoping the numerous scaup, redhead, American Wigeon and Gadwall, but could not locate an Eurasian Wigeon. I would then muscle my way on the bike toward the Middle Causeway and head west toward the junction of Vermet, Long Pond and Humphries Units.

There, I found another Snowy Owl sitting in the grass to my left, which was odd since a DNR truck had just passed and somehow did not spook it. But, it flushed as I approached, so I took a few pics as it few north along the dike toward the North Causeway. It would then fly back to the Middle Causeway as I rode in its direction. I would continue on and back to the car.