Mike Drew: Tale of the snowy owl that got away yyc
After 375 kilometres of highway and backroads and eight hours of field and power-pole scanning in prime snowy owl country, I managed to spot exactly one owl.Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Calgary SUN, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails or any newsletter. Postmedia Network Inc.
I headed due east keeping my speed to less than 60 km/h and scanned the fields and powerlines for anything white and upright. I’d seen snowies out this way back in December — though not very close — so I scanned the countryside with confidence.I cut north a bit to the more rolling countryside east of Acme and then east again toward Carbon. But beyond a few false alarms — snow lumps, bright powerline insulators — the drive was owl-less.
From a rise just east of town, I looked back through my long lens at the elevators standing out against the snowy fields and grabbed a shot of cattle silhouetted against those zigzag clouds I’d ignored earlier. I found a pair of partridges that stayed perfectly still for some reason instead of flying off. They did camouflage pretty well against the dry grass.Mike Drew/Postmedia
There were cattle standing around the blue ice of a frozen spring seep on the other side of Rumsey and up on the hills north of town I launched my little drone again. Fascinating country here. If the roads had been better I would have explored a bit more. This whole Rumsey Natural Area and the land around it is pretty unique. I’ll be back come springtime.
Wolf willow berries against the blue shadows in the Red Deer River valley west of Rumsey, Ab., on Tuesday, February 14, 2023.Greenleaf School — I swear a photographer picked that building’s location! — treated me better, backlit from one angle and then glowing red against the blue of the afternoon from another. The view to the west was pretty nice, too, with the road leading away into the blue haze that was starting to form.The sun was dropping lower now as I headed south again.
The owl was gone. In the eleven milliseconds it had taken me to raise the camera, the owl had flown off. In desperation, I aimed the long lens at her quickly receding butt and fired away.
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