This year’s trip to Sax-Zim Bog (it’s my 6th year in a row) was definitely a success. Except for one day, our shooting has been mostly of Great Gray Owls. After a disappointing day on Wednesday, though, we decided to go to a place a couple hours away called Two Harbors where there is a lighthouse (it’s on Lake Superior) and where we were told there was an irruption of owls, both Great Gray and Boreal. While we were there, we got some great shots of the Two Harbors Lighthouse but we did not see a single owl. Returning to Sax-Zim Bog for the afternoon, we learned that a Great Gray had been hanging out since morning in an area where we’d photographed him a couple of days before. We also heard that someone had captured a shot of a Great Gray perched atop the Owl Road sign, the street the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center is on. It didn’t take much prodding to get us to head over to where the owl was seen, and there he was, nestled in the crotch of a birch tree. When he flew off a short time later as he started to hunt, he landed on the top edge of a diamond shaped sign, perhaps to get a better lookout for his next meal. The concentration of his stare shows his determination and the feathers that formed his facial disk help him to direct and intensify sounds in his search for prey. The way he is barely clinging to the edge of the sign with his talons made me think his hold was a bit tenuous and he soon settled back onto a branch on the birch tree. What a rush it was to spend all afternoon with him yesterday, watching and shooting as he occasionally changed perches, catnapped, and even caught and gulped down a vole.