Banff National Park

Joshua Rutledge June 7, 2023

Over Memorial Day Weekend my wife and I spent a couple of days up in Banff National Park. We were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. I had not been there since I was kid, and honestly after being there again, I didn’t remember much of it at all. So either my memory has faded or maybe things have changed a bit since I was there last. I really only had some vague memories of Lake Louise and a little bit of the hike in Johnston Canyon. And really I only remember the metal railing and how part of the trail is constructed into the cliffs. I don’t remember anything about the falls or the hike itself from back then. But I will get to all of that.

We drove north up through the port of Sweet Grass, onto Lethbridge (with a Tim Hortons stop of course), skirted around Calgary, we had to take a bit of a detour due to construction and eventually ended up in the town of Banff, which is inside Banff National Park.

I think we got there about 3:30 in the afternoon, so by the time we checked into our hotel and got settled a bit, there was not a lot of time to kill before we wandered around the town a bit and found some dinner. We ended up eating at a little British inspired pub, it was good. There were a lot of interesting choices as far as dining goes in Banff to choose from, but I guess we were feeling a little nostalgic for our trip to the UK last summer.

After dinner we took a little drive around and just took in a few of the sites closest to the town of Banff. We took the Tunnel Mountain Drive and went by the Hoodoo’s viewing area. We then went and drove the loop that included Lake Minnewanka, Two Jake Lake, Johnson Lake and the Cascade Ponds. It was a bit smokey from all of the fires, but it was not too bad. With sunset approaching, we headed back to town and did a little more walking around. We ended up getting a beaver tail (fry bread with sweet toppings) at one of the shops. It was very good.

The view from the hoodoo trail.

A close look at some of the hoodoos.

Bull elk on the Tunnel Mountain road.

View of the docks and boat launch at Lake Minnewanka.

A raven near Lake Minnewanka.

Big horn sheep ewes and lambs near Lake Minnewanka.

Another view of the big horn sheep.

Two Jack Lake.

Another view of Two Jack Lake.

A view at the Cascade Ponds.

I liked this bridge at Cascade Ponds.

Reflection of the mountains at Cascade Ponds.

Canada goose at the Cascade Ponds.

The next morning we got up and took a bus to Johnston Canyon for a hike. We had been told parking could be difficult so we decided to take a bus. We were still early enough in the season that it was not an issue when we got there, we would have been fine to drive ourselves. But the parking lots were full by the time we left. We hiked as far as the overlook for the Upper Falls. If you keep going you can go up to the Ink Pots, but since we had more we wanted to do that day, we decided the Upper Falls was probably far enough. Maybe that will be something for next time.

We then headed up to Lake Louise. We also took a bus up to there. Since it was already getting to be later in the day, it was VERY busy up there and we were glad we chose to take the bus. I think if we had gone there first thing in the morning it probably would have been ok. We spent a little bit of time getting our pictures at the main walkway between the Fairmont Chalet and the lake. We did not have a lot of time until our return bus ride, so we chose to hike to the end of the lake just to see what that looked like. There were some other hikes that were along the way that would have been fun to take, including a hike to the tea house, but we just didn’t have enough time. It was interesting to look all the way across the lake back to the chalet.

Lake Louise from a little bit around the shoreline.

I really liked this mountain, it just has a lot of colors and textures, plus the color of the water.

Looking back at the Fairmont Chalet from the far end of Lake Louise.

After our hike we jumped back on a bus and headed back to Banff. We then ran out to Vermillion Lakes which are just outside of town. We were hoping to maybe spot some wildlife and just take in the views of the lakes. We did see some muskrats, loons, various ducks and an osprey. We did not see anything larger such as a bear or moose or anything like we had hoped. It was also rather windy out, so the lakes were not very calm. I had seen images with the mountains reflecting in the lakes on a calm day, but unfortunately that wasn’t meant to be.

Mountains in the background at Vermillion Lakes.

My wife out on a dock at Vermillion Lakes.

Osprey perched in an old snag at Vermillion Lakes.

We ended the day by going back into town and taking in a few more places we had not got to yet. We stopped and got an ice cream cone and decided to grab a pizza from a local shop. Both the ice cream and the pizza were excellent. The following morning we got up early to try and find some wildlife so we headed back down closer to the Johnston Canyon area, but we did not end up finding much. We still stopped at a couple of spots to take in the vistas though, including Castle Mountain. After that, we figured it was probably time to get back on the road and get back home to Montana.

A male sharp-tailed grouse dancing on the lek right before sunrise.

Spring 2023 Sharp-tailed Grouse

Joshua Rutledge April 4, 2023

On April 1, 2023 my wife, my sister and I had the chance to visit a blind again and watch the sharp-tailed grouse out on their lek. As always we had a great time and it is one of my favorite spring activities in Montana. The morning was cool, but not cold for April, but it was fairly overcast and windy. We were probably in the blind for about half an hour when we started to hear the first grouse showing up at the lek. It is always exciting when you start to hear them in the still relative darkness.

We saw about 37 grouse that morning, all males. The numbers and being all males was typical for early April. The hens tend to show up a little later on in the season. The male grouse were spending their time establishing their spots on the lek and trying to keep other males away. There was a fair amount of minor fighting and chasing each other around mixed in with their dancing displays.

I brought my Canon R5 and my Canon R6 camera bodies. I also brought my Canon EF 600MM F4 II lens, my Canon RF 100-500 and my Canon EF 70-200 2.8 III lens. I wanted to make sure I had the ability to get some wider shots while also having the ability to get nice and close with the longer lenses. You never know for sure exactly where the grouse will be, so it’s nice to cover all of your bases. I brought two tripods, my heavier aluminum Manfrotto tripod with a gimbal head I use for my longer lenses and a smaller, lighter, travel tripod I used with the 70-200 lens. I wanted to make sure I could capture some good audio as well, so I brought my Rode Video Mic Pro+ as well.

We watched the grouse for about 2 and a half hours. They stuck around later into the morning than usual, well past 9 AM. It has been my experience in the past that most of the grouse usually leave the lek between 8 and 8:30. I am not sure if it was the cloudy conditions or why they stuck around a little longer than usual. They were also not chased off at all this time from eagles or coyotes as has been the case in the past.

I am trying something a little different this time and I added a gallery below of some pictures from the morning. You should be able to scroll through the reel and click on the thumbnail images for a larger view. There is also a link to a video from the morning from my YouTube channel. I also have another blog post from a couple of years ago about the sharp-tailed grouse for those of you that are interested. Sharp-Tailed Grouse 2021.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse.

Male sharp-tailed grouse doing his dance on the lek.

Male sharp-tailed grouse on the lek.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse fighting for position on the lek.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse still fighting on the lek.

One more of the male sharp-tailed grouse fighting on the lek.

Male sharp-tailed grouse on the lek.

Close up of a male sharp-tailed grouse.

A bison fighting through the snow in Yellowstone National Park. Please remember you can always click on the images for a larger view depending on your device.

Winter in Yellowstone National Park

Joshua Rutledge February 20, 2023

On February 18, 2023 my sister Melissa and I decided to take a quick trip down to Yellowstone National Park for the day. Visiting the park in the winter is always fun, since the crowds are smaller and the winter snow gives everything a little bit different look and feel than during the warmer summer months. While you most likely will not see bears during the winter (although it is not impossible) other wildlife such as wolves and coyotes are more visible this time of year. The park is about a 3 hour drive, but with the days starting to get longer now, it is possible to spend a pretty full day in the park and still get back home at a reasonable time. Unless you are booking a trip by snow-coach, there are only limited places in the park you can go anyway, so you don’t necessarily need as much time as you would during the summer to explore. With that said, there are opportunities for cross country skiing and snowshoeing (and the aforementioned snow coaches) if you do want to access more locations.

As we approached the north entrance to the park, we started to see a lot of bison and elk out on the landscape outside of the park around Gardiner, MT. It is common to see some small herds of elk and bison outside of the park, but this year was the most I think I had ever seen. I believe the reason for this was because the snow conditions inside of the park forced animals to find easier grazing elsewhere. We did still see a lot of elk and bison inside of the park as well, but it was obvious they were having to fight through the snow a lot harder.

A large bull elk that still has his antlers inside the town of Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park.

With the historic flooding last spring that washed out the main road from Gardiner to Mammoth, you now have to take an alternative route from the north entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs. The main hotel in Mammoth was under construction this winter, so it was not open for tourists to stay. It appeared as though the snow-coaches were still departing from there however. We saw a few elk and bison roaming around inside the town-site of Mammoth which is fairly typical.

A bison using its large head as a shovel to move the snow looking for something to eat.

From there we headed to the Lamar Valley to see what we could find. We found a lot of bison and a few elk along the drive to the valley. Going down the valley we saw several coyotes and a lot more elk and bison, a lone bull moose and there were some American dippers along the river. We were hoping to maybe find some wolves, bighorn sheep or otters, but unfortunately we did not find any of those. We talked to a tour guide that had spotted a lone wolf a long ways off earlier in the morning, but that was all. We also stopped to look at a bear den where a black bear was just visible inside of the den. I tried to take some pictures, but the den was too dark and there were too many slow flakes in the air so it obscured the bear in the pictures I took. We drove almost all the way to Cooke City and then turned around and came back. On the drive back we found a couple more coyotes and a red fox. After almost returning to Gardiner on the way back out of the park, we did finally spot a few bighorn sheep far off in the distance.

A coyote looking a little suspicious in the snow.

An American dipper feeding by the river, not technically a great picture, but I wanted to include it for documentation.

One of the coyotes we saw had been struggling through the snow and eventually it laid down not too far off the road so we were able to stop and get quite a few pictures. I was using my Canon R5 with the Canon 600mm F4 version II with the EF-RF adapter. With all of the snow in the park, I was usually using between 1.5 and 2 stops of compensation to get the correct exposure. We were also able to stop for a few minutes and watch the red fox as well. I was photographing it with the same setup. For some of the larger animals in the park, when the 600mm was not necessary, I was using my Canon R6 with the Canon RF 100-500 lens. I find that the Canon 100-500 does a very good job with motion stabilization in video mode, so I have actually come to prefer that lens for video even over my 600mm F4 when possible. I don’t think the older Canon EF 600mm lens works quite as well stabilizing with the new IBIS on the Canon R5/R6. So in some instances I did switch over to the R6, 100-500 combo to grab some video clips after I was done getting still with the 600mm.

A coyote looking back at the camera while it was resting.

A coyote laying its head down for a minute resting.

A coyote yawning, so you can see its teeth.

A red fox listening to hear if it can detect anything under the snow.

Even though we did not spot any wolves or more exotic sightings in the park, it was still a fun day. For anyone that has not visited Yellowstone in the winter, I would highly recommend it.

The Many Glacier Hotel with Swiftcurrent Lake and the mountains in the background.

Glacier National Park - June 2022 - Day 3

Joshua Rutledge July 8, 2022

On the morning of day three it was time to pack up and move ourselves over to the east side of the park, specifically to Many Glacier. We had a room in the Many Glacier Hotel reserved. Originally we were supposed to stay at the Swift Current Motor Inn & Cabins (we had a cabin reserved) but due to staffing shortages they moved us over to the Many Glacier Hotel for the night. We actually enjoy staying at the Swift Current Inn as it’s a little less busy and it’s closer to Fishercap Lake which we like to visit in the mornings and evenings. It also has more casual dining options including pizza and breakfast served all day. The Many Glacier Hotel is more historic and worth a stay however if you are in the area. You can’t beat the view from the deck overlooking Swiftcurrent Lake. The Swiss inspired stylings of the motel is fun to experience as well.

While traveling to the east side, we decided we better pull into the Goat Lick Overlook again after our amazing experience the night before. We were hoping with the rain having passed that the conditions might be better for viewing. There were goats there again, but fewer than before and the group that was closest the night before was no longer there, so the photographic opportunities I was hoping for did not happen. But it was still fun to watch the mountain goats some more. Since there were no goats close by, I got out my tripod with my 600mm lens and the 1.4x teleconverter to bring them in as close as possible. I was pretty popular with other people at the overlook when they saw me with so much gear out. I even let a couple fellow Canon shooters borrow my long lens on their cameras to get a couple shots.

A mountain goat nanny and her kid at Goat Lick Overlook. As always, depending your device, you can click on any of the pictures in my blogs for a full screen view.

Another nanny and kid from the overlook.

On our way into Many Glacier we spotted two black bears and a grizzly bear. So it was a pretty good start to our stay over there. As was the case on day one, we knew we had some time before we could check into our hotel, so we decided to take a hike up to Apikuni Falls. We had driven by the trailhead many times over the years (it is often closed due to bear activity though) but had never actually done the hike. It is not a long hike, less than 2 miles round trip, but it is pretty much straight up the whole way and our legs were not fresh after all of the hiking the day before. With the higher than normal water levels this spring, I am guessing it was a good time to visit the falls. I am assuming on a normal year or later in the season it would not be as impressive.

Grizzly bear near Lake Sherburne in Many Glacier - Glacier National Park.

Another shot of the grizzly bear as we were coming into Many Glacier.

A little wider shot of the grizzly bear. It appeared to be flipping over rocks and digging up roots.

One of the black bears we observed coming into the park. This one was not far from the Apikuni Falls trailhead, but on the other side of the road. Typically we see more grizzly bears in that area and not black bears.

A head on shot of the black bear in Many Glacier. You can really tell how large of a black bear it was from this perspective.

Apikuni Falls as seen from the trail leading up to the falls. Since I wanted to travel light, I just grabbed my Canon R6 and my 24-70 lens.

After finishing our hike and looking around a little bit we were able to check into our hotel room. We spent a little bit of time relaxing before it was time to go out and do some wildlife viewing. We started our evening at Fischercap Lake, hoping to find some moose that frequent the area. The lake, as was the case everywhere, was higher than normal so there was not a lot of shoreline to set up on. We were visited by a couple of white-tail deer while we waited for moose. They were obviously very habituated to people as they were getting uncomfortably close. Eventually a young cow moose did appear along the willows at the end of the lake. She was nursing a pretty sizable wound on her back leg. I am guessing it was probably from a bear attack. She eventually wandered off, and nothing else was showing up, so we decided to load up and see if we could find some bears. It didn’t take us long and we did find two grizzly bears. We talked to the rangers and they told us it was a mating pair. They knew the female as it had been previously collared and the male had appeared the day before. The rangers were very patient and interactive and were very accommodating to people trying to get pictures. Maybe because it was early in the season or because the crowds were still low, they were way more chill than usual when it comes to managing the crowds and the grizzly bears. For the most part everyone that was there viewing the bears were well behaved, so that might have contributed to the positive experience with the park rangers as well. After a while we decided to head down the road and see if we could find anything else and let someone else have our spot along the road. We did not see anything else that evening and went back to the hotel for some rest. We enjoyed some time out on the deck watching the sunset behind the mountains at Swiftcurrent Lake.

A young cow moose nursing an injury at Fishercap Lake - Many Glacier.

The young moose again in the willows along the edge of Fishercap Lake. Willow is one of the moose’s favorite foods, especially when it’s new growth. They also enjoy eating the aquatic vegetation that grows in the lake.

A male and female grizzly bear with some of the surrounding environment along Lake Sherburne in Many Glacier.

A little tighter shot on the male grizzly bear. Please make sure you follow park rules and keep your distance from the wildlife. All of these images were shot on long lenses so I could maintain a safe distance.

The next morning, day 4, we got up and decided to see what we could find before we had to head for home. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to try Fishercap Lake one more time, or see what else was out there. We decided to pass on Fishercap due to not seeing a lot the night before. We were able to find the two grizzly bears again from the night before, as they had not gone far. We watched them for a while and then continued down the road towards the main entrance and found a black bear right alongside the road. I got a few pictures on my cell phone, but that was all. Since we didn’t see anything else and a crowd was starting to form back at the pair of grizzly bears, we decided to drive down towards Fishercap just to see if anything was down there. We didn’t even get as far as the lake and we saw a big bull moose out in one of the openings. So we watched him for a while and decided we probably couldn't do much better than that anyway, and called it good for the morning without going to Fishercap Lake. We went back to the motel to pack up and then headed home. I had to be home to pick up our dogs from the kennel so we knew we couldn't stay too long.

A bull moose in Many Glacier - Glacier National Park. This was also with my Canon R6 and the Canon 100-500 as my memory card was full in my R5 and I didn’t have time to switch.

More of an environmental shot with the bull moose to include the mountains in the background.

One more shot of the bull moose in velvet grazing on the underbrush.

All in all, despite all of the closures, it was still a great trip. In total we saw 5 grizzly bears (some more than once, but 5 individual bears) 3 black bears, a whole bunch of mountain goats, 2 moose, a lot of waterfalls, tons of wild flowers, and all of the scenery you could take in. I am very blessed to live where I do, so close to so much natural beauty. For the landscape pictures I was primarily using an adapted Canon EF 24-70 2.8 II lens. I did break out my Canon EF 16-35 2.8 III lens a couple of times for some of the larger vista shots. I don’t like how that lens behaves with the stabilization in video mode with my Canon R5 though, so I don’t tend to use it a lot when I know I am going to be going back and forth between stills and video. I sometimes prefer to just make a panorama using my 24-70 if it’s not wide enough. For the wildlife I was mostly using my new Canon RF 100-500 lens. It was a lot of run and gun photo/video so I didn’t have a lot of time to get out a tripod and setup my Canon 600mm F4 II lens. I was able to use it a couple of times this trip, but not as much as I would have liked. I may need to think of a different strategy for how to use my 600 F4 in the future in those situations. Maybe a monopod? Or maybe I need to look into a tripod that’s a little quicker/easier to deploy. The Canon 100-500 worked well and for the most part I was happy with it… But it will never give me the quality (or the reach) of my 600mm F4.

Glacier National Park - June 2022 - Day 2

Joshua Rutledge July 7, 2022

We started day two of our June 2022 Glacier National Park trip heading north along Camas Road with plans to go to Polebridge and then on to Bowman Lake and eventually as far as Kintla Lake. It had been many years since I had been to Bowman Lake and even longer since I had been to Kintla. Unfortunately, we discovered that the road to Kintla Lake was closed due to flooding. So that will have to wait a little longer. We still made a stop at the Polebridge Mercantile and acquired some baked goods. You have to try the huckleberry bear claws if you ever get the chance. This year we also discovered they had a few savory items as well, we really enjoyed the baked pizza roll.

With our bellies filled, we got back on the dirt road and headed towards Bowman Lake. The road is dirt, but most of the time it is passable in a passenger car, although I would prefer something with a little more ground clearance. Once we got to the lake we spent a little time around the boat launch area and then took a short hike around the eastern shore over the bridge at the outlet of Bowman Creek and continued for another half a mile or so along the shore. We saw a lot of wildflowers, some deer and even a spruce grouse in the area.

The view of Bowman Lake from the bridge over the Bowman Creek outlet. My sister Melissa is admiring the view.

We were probably just a little early for the peak of wildflower season, but we still found a lot, including these Purple Clematis.

Another shot of the male Spruce Grouse, he was not being a very cooperative subject.

Since we could not make it to Kintla Lake, we had to shift gears and come up with a plan B for the rest of the day. So after our curiosity was satisfied at Bowman, we decided to drive all the way around to the east side of the park and do some hiking. I had been wanting to see Saint Mary Falls and Virginia Falls, so we made a plan to do that. Since we were so late in the day at that point, we were not able to find parking where we wanted for the Saint Mary Falls hike. We ended up parking just down the road from Sunrift Gorge. This meant we could do a little longer hike and also see Baring Falls, so that is what we did. We hiked down Siyeh Pass to Baring Falls and then got on the Piegan Pass trail along Saint Mary Lake until we hit the Saint Mary Falls trail and then continued past the falls up to Virginia Falls, with some lesser falls along the way. If you enjoy waterfalls, I would really recommend this hike. I believe it’s a little over 5 miles round trip. There is a little bit of elevation coming and going, but it’s not too bad. On our way back we decided to hike up to the road and walk it back to where we parked since it was a more direct route then going around to Baring Falls again.

A view from the trail between Baring Falls and Saint Marry Falls with Saint Mary Lake and the mountains in the background. There is also evidence of the fires that went through this area several years go.

A cascade along the trail between Saint Mary Falls and Virginia Falls.

Virginia Falls. Even from this far away you could still feel the mist on you. If you hike a little further there is an overlook closer to the falls.

On our way back of course we had to stop for some Wild Goose Island and Jackson Glacier pictures. With so much snow still left on the mountains, you could not really discern Jackson Glacier from the surrounding snow still on the mountains. We were hoping to maybe spot a bear on our way out too, as they often frequent the shores along Saint Mary Lake, but we did not see any this time. Even though it was getting late and it was a little rainy, we decided to pull into the Goat Lick Overlook. I am sure glad we did. We saw at least 15 mountain goats there that evening. They were primarily hanging out in three different areas visible from the overlook area. The rain and fog would kind of come and go, so it wasn’t great for photography, or at least not for what I was trying to do, but it was still awesome to see so many mountain goats in one spot. As the name implies, the goats were in the area licking the salts that leach out of the rocks/soil in the area. We stayed there until it was pretty much dark and then we finished the drive back to our hotel at Lake McDonald and called it a night.

Wild Goose Island on Saint Mary Lake with an incoming storm.

Three mountain goats in the Goat Lick Overlook area.

Near dark, a nanny mountain goat with her kid tucked in behind her on the cliffs at Goat Lick Overlook.

Spring 2022 Catch Up

Joshua Rutledge June 20, 2022

I am starting to run behind on my blog posts again. I have a post I am still working on from a recent trip to extreme South East Montana and I also just returned from an awesome early summer trip to Glacier National Park. Please check back in the near future to view those posts. Since I am still working on those, I thought I would make a real quick post to share a few of my pictures from a little closer to home I have taken this spring (in some cases, so close to home they were in my backyard.)

I recently had a flock of Cedar Waxwings hanging out in our apple tree in the backyard. I had seen a few in the neighborhood a couple of years ago, but I was not able to get any good pictures at the time. I have since been hoping that someday I would see them again. Luckily this spring was my chance. Since the apple tree was still full of blossoms (which the birds were eating) it made for some great pictures. It was an overcast day and the wind was blowing pretty hard, so it wasn’t the best day for photography, but it was still fun. We have also had a pair of Mourning Doves build a nest in the same apple tree. The nest is not very substantial, but it has survived several storms now, so I guess it was sufficient. We also had robins nesting in both of our neighbors' yards that have been fun to watch. I did not take pictures of either of these however, as I didn’t feel comfortable pointing a large lens and camera into my neighbors’ yards.

A Cedar Waxwing getting ready to pull off and eat another pedal off a apple blossom.

A Cedar Waxwing posing with some apple blossoms.

Another Cedar Waxwing eating an apple blossom.

A Mourning Dove sitting on her nest keep an eye on me.

I also took a trip out to Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge the other day. If you follow my blogs you know that is one of my favorite spots to visit. With the drought conditions this year, the water levels are fairly low in the area, but I was still able to view several bird species. As I am typing this, we are luckily finally getting some much needed rain. I was out there when it was a little windy and a bit cool, but on the upside that meant the bugs were not too much of a problem which can be the case during our warmer months. This trip was also my first chance to try out my new Canon 100-500 RF lens. Since I primarily shoot with the Canon R5 now, I am starting to get tired of always having to use EF to RF adapters with my old lenses. It just complicates things and makes packing/planning what gear to bring more difficult. I cannot afford to replace all of my old lenses, but the 100-500 is something that I will leave on my camera most of the time so it seemed like a good investment. This will replace the Canon 100-400 II that has kind of been my workhorse from my DSLR days. That is a great lens so the 100-500 has some big shoes to fill. So far I have been pretty satisfied with the 100-500. It does have a minimum aperture of F7.1 at 500mm which is kind of a bummer (the 100-400 was F5.6 at 400mm), but for the most part I can work around that. It is a little bit lighter and you do get an extra 100mm focal length over the 100-400, so I think it’s a fair trade. It will still never be a replacement for my 600mm F4, but that is not always practical to pack around.

A White-Faced Ibis wading in the water at Benton Lake NWR.

A Black-crowned Night-Heron along the shore at Benton Lake NWR.

I am not 100% sure on the ID of this bird. Please leave a comment if you know.

A Northern Shoveler just coming in for a landing.

Spring Burrowing Owls

Joshua Rutledge May 8, 2022

On the evening of May 7th my sister and I were able to observe some burrowing owls in Central Montana. We visited the site earlier in the day when we were coming back from a different outing, but it was storming and I did not have all of my camera gear with me. We only saw two owls during our initial visit, but with the wind and rain coming in, we did not stay very long to look more closely. After it looked like the storms had passed for the day, we decided to take a chance and make the hour long drive back to the site to see if we could get a better look at the owls. Upon arriving at the site, it was still windy as the last of the storms were just leaving the area and we did not see any owls. But not long after, as the weather cleared, we started seeing several owls moving about the area. They were so active in fact, it was difficult to keep track of how many owls were present. Our best guess is there were somewhere between about 6 and 10 owls.

Burrowing owls are small birds and we were only able to get so close to them, as to not disturb them. I had my longest lens on (Canon 600mm F4 version 2) and I also attached my 1.4x Canon teleconverter (version 3) to try and bring them in as close as possible. Even with all of that glass, they were still very small in the frame of my Canon R5. With that in mind, I actually ended up concentrating more on trying to get some video footage. The Canon R5 has a crop mode in video, so I enabled that to try and make the owls as large as possible. I also attached my external Rhode VideoMic Pro+ microphone to try and capture the sounds of the owls. Please check out the video link at the end of this post so you can see and hear the owls around their burrows. I did try to take some still photos and I am including a few here, even though the quality is not the best. These photographs are heavily cropped, so the quality is severely degraded, but I still wanted to share them for illustrative purposes.

Burrowing Owl taking a walk. It looks like he was on a mission.

Burrowing owl looking into the camera. He did not seem very happy about having his picture taken.

Burrowing owl, giving me a bit of a side eye look.

A pair of burrowing owls in the entrance of their burrow.

We only had about an hour with the owls by the time the weather moved out, so there was not a lot of daylight to work with. It was still worth the trip though, as it was one of my goals this year to try to locate and photograph some burrowing owls. I plan to revisit the site to try and get some better photographs. I am hoping if I had more time on the site, I might have the opportunity to get the owls a little closer for some better pictures. I am also hoping later on this spring, that perhaps I can observe some chicks as well, which would be a first for me.