One of my favorite winter photography subjects are Short-eared Owls in northwest Washington state. The owls arrive in November and spend the winter before heading north for the summer breeding season.

Luckily for me there’s a spot only an hour from my house where the owls can be found most winters. I went there a few weeks ago for this year’s first session of owl photography. Here are a few photographs from that short session at the Skagit Wildlife Area near Edison, WA.

I was especially excited to try my new Nikon Z8 camera to photograph the owls. The camera has a bird detection focus mode that’s advertised to make it much easier to get in-focus shots of flying birds. The hype appears to be true. I was very happy with how the camera locked onto the flying owls and produced in-focus shots even as the late afternoon light worsened.

Unfortunately, other than one pass right overhead, the owls were pretty far away. Because of this, I didn’t get many close up shots but you can find some closer shots of Short-eared Owls in northwest Washington from previous years here and here.