Portrait Session

Normally I am not a fan of wildlife portraits. So many of them seem static and the subject seems flat. I made an exception last week while watching a young burrowing owl. It seemed to have a character that was changing almost constantly. 

Kestrel in the Storm

This guy was waiting out the snow while still looking for lunch. I was impressed by its delicate nature and small size. The gray sky and the kestrel's subtle color made this a perfect shot to convert to black and white.

Technical: converted to b & w in Lightroom

Stretching in the Snow

I recently watched a great talk by Andy Biggs whose photography in black and white is phenomenal in its simplicity of design. His subjects are the iconic megafauna of Africa but done in a unique way. If I were to go to Africa I would signup with him. His work can be seen at: Andy Biggs Photography  There are other great photographers at: Talks at Google Photographers. A couple of my favorites are Art Wolfe whose personality clearly comes through and Moose Peterson who I gained new respect for after watching.

Technical: I didn't go all the way to B&W with this image, only removing the saturation from the tree. 

The Mouse Won?

This boreal owl was found near the corner of our cabin which is a well known mouse runway.  Of course we don't know exactly what happened but the story of the owl crashing into the wall while diving for a mouse is somehow more appealing than it shivering and slowly succumbing to starvation and cold weather.

Boreal Owl Waking Up

February has been a good month.  I hope the owls make it back home.

These beautiful birds are here for one purpose, to survive.  Unfortunately not all are making it.  For those of us who do not live in the Duluth area Sam Cook has been a great source of regular information.  This is a link to one of his recent columns and I would encourage you to read his earlier columns as well.
Boreal Owls Dying 

Boreal Owl Preening in Forest -Raw footage from Dale Bohlke on Vimeo.

The challenge of an irruption is to find an owl in natural habitat, doing what it normally does.  I found this guy in the woods late one afternoon and recorded it while it went through its wake up routine.  This unedited footage, with its flaws, is one of 30 video files currently being arranged into story form.

Boreal Owl

I spent some time with this guy over the weekend.  The temptation was to fill the frame but after the first question asked by my wife was, "How big is it?", I decided to show it in context to demonstrate how small the owl actually is.  The owl was deep in the trees and woke up as it became darker.  Technical: ISO 1600, focal length 275 mm