Winter in the Pacific Northwest is kind of lousy in general–lots of gray rainy days. But for bird photographers it’s actually a great time of year. Many ducks and owls winter here, including the winter Skagit Short-eared Owls that I love to photograph. This post contains photographs from a recent late-January visit to the Samish River Wildlife Area Unit that’s part of the Skagit Wildlife Area. Several owls were present off an on. However, all of these photos are of the same cooperative owl that put on a great show for several hours.

The owl in the photo above flew in and perched on a post that was probably less than 50 feet away from me. The bird was so close that with my 600mm I couldn’t get it completely in the photo without backing up into a nearby road. So I opted for some close-up portrait photos instead.

Later, the same bird landed nearby on a large clod of dirt and grass for several minutes while looking for some voles. The photo above is one of the shots I got of the owl on the ground. This time I needed all 600mm of my lens (and a 1.5x DX crop factor in my Nikon Z8 camera) to get detailed photos.

Taking Flight

The owl was perched much of the time on signs, posts and several man-made perches at the area. It did however put on a great aerial show as well. In the photo above, the owl is flying directly at me while scouring the field below for snacks. Below is one more photo of the owl giving me a fly-by.

All of these photos were taken with a Nikon Z8 camera and the Z 600mm f/6.3 lens. My relatively new Z 600mm lens is rapidly becoming my favorite wildlife and bird photography lens. It’s extremely light and I can hand-hold my camera and this lens for hours while locating and photographing wildlife. This eliminates the need to drag along a heavy tripod.