Here are some more Washington Short-eared Owl photos. I took these last week during a photo session at the Samish River Wildlife Area Unit in the Skagit Wildlife Area. My last post was from an earlier visit to this area. This spot is known as the “East 90” to local birders and photographers because of the 90-degree turn in the road near the fields. This also differentiates it from the “West 90” area a few miles away.

I arrived at sunrise hoping to get photos of the owls as the sun came up. Unfortunately it was very foggy and even if owls were around I couldn’t see them, much less photograph them. Time to be patient.

I had already invested the time driving from home, so decided to wait a while, hoping the fog would clear. Boy, am I glad I did! After an almost two hour wait the fog began to clear and an owl landed on a nearby sign. The photo above is of that owl perching on the sign. The “Restricted Entry” warning on the sign is because of hunting season. During hunting season, only hunters can enter the field so I took my photos from the pull-of area on the road that runs along the field.

At this point more patience was required as the owl just sat on the sign for over half an hour. I got plenty of photos of the perching bird but really wanted some in-flight photos. So I was really excited when the owl finally took flight and began to hunt. The owl quickly caught a vole as you can see in the photo below.

The fog began to clear even more and the owl put on a great aerial display as it continued hunting. Here are a few shots of the owl in flight. For the next two hours the owl hunted for 10-minutes or so and hanging out on the signs.

Nikon Camera Equipment

I was able to spend several hours photographing this owl. A second owl showed up briefly but the owl in these photos was the star of the show. I’m glad I was patient and waited for the fog to clear as I got some good in-flight photos. It was a great opportunity to test the “bird subject detection” focus mode in my Nikon Z8 camera. The camera consistently locked onto the eye of the flying bird for sharp in-focus photographs. This is a “must have” if possible feature for a bird photographer. It can be found in the Nikon Z6iii, Z8 and Z9 cameras.

I was also very happy with my Nikon Z 180-600 mm lens that I used for all of the photos. I needed the 600mm long-end reach of he lens for most shots. However, being able to zoom out was useful several times when the in-flight owls got very close. The combination of the Z8 and this lens isn’t light but I was able to hand-hold them for several hours of photography. So happy to such a great camera setup for bird photography!