Short-eared Owl

FEW OWLS are active during the day. Short-eared Owls are one. They are medium-sized, handsomely patterned owls, with expressive faces, yellow eyes, and thick legs. Their tawny colors camouflage them in the grassy fields where they hunt for small animals. And for weeks earlier this year, photographers were suddenly posting pictures of them from the Skagit River Valley. Friends who’d seen the owls urged me to go and gave vague directions. On the day I chose, the weather app predicted sun and I cajoled my friend Bill into joining me. Skagit Valley is a couple of hours away, including a ferry crossing, and is one of my favorite places to see birds. But I’ve lost my way more than once while trailing the enormous flocks of snow geese that winter there. The wide, flat river delta is crisscrossed with asphalt roads that look much the same. Though Bill has navigated much of the world over his lifetime, we took several wrong turns.

WHEN WE FINALLY arrived, there was no doubt we had found the spot. These owls had paparazzi. A dozen cars and vans lined the narrow shoulder, their owners’ tripods and telephoto lenses standing at attention. The sky was dull and the air wet and cold. The promised sun did not appear, though Bill felt sure it was coming any minute. (It did, as we were boarding the ferry home.) We spotted an owl right off, in the grass, twenty-five feet from the road. For predators like these, the straw-covered river valley provides rich hunting grounds. Northern Harriers were scouring the same territory and Bald Eagles occupied a tree down the road. When our owl took flight, the photo corps snapped into action. But the bird’s first move was to fly across the road, out of range of the tripods, where it alighted on a wooden post. A minute later, the bird rose and began circling the field, near and then further away, sometimes high in the sky and then lower to the ground. At one point the owl cruised in front me, its massive wings perpendicular to the ground. I took the shot and watched it execute a skillful turn, hover, stretch its talons forward, and dive into the grass. The owl missed its prey and I failed to land the crisp Nat Geo action shot that a sunnier day might have yielded. Yet when I developed the pictures, the softened colors seemed somehow true to the soggy winter fields and the stealth of the hunt.

Nikon Z9, 500mm, f8@1/500 sec., ISO 1,250

Postscript. This morning I watched a video of a orchestral flash mob performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Spain. Maria Popova of The Marginalian posted it. My heart was in my throat. How phenomenal that a two-century-old work of art can inspire such love. The chorus implicates birds through its depiction of Joy in the line, “Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt,” translated “Wherever your gentle wings hover.”