photoartflightSnowy Owl In Piermont, NY
Still going through backup drives to look for interesting images to post. Back in 2007 I heard there was a Snowy Owl in the Piermont NYC Metro Area. Piermont is a Rockland County town tucked in along the Hudson River, just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge. There were tall pilings far out in the water where it seemed it liked to hang out from what we heard. When I got there it was on top of a telephone pole near the edge of the water. It then flew out to the pilings farther out in the water which looked nicer for photos. I shot a series of images and then left since a huge crowd was assembling and did not want to be the middle of it. Image taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 2X Teleconverter on a Canon 1D mkII.
photoartflight 
A mythical owl from the great untouched wildernes, a dream goal to see in reality and be able to pick out from the archive. Congratulations Reed!
Thanks Hans! It was fun to see & photograph!
I was just telling a friend about irruptive snowy owls. I haven’t heard of any this year. I wondered if folks were starting to keep mum about sightings as the large crowds end up disrupting its sleep cycle, endangering its survival. Have you heard anything through your grapevine?
Hi Eliza! No, I have not heard anything, but there again we have not been with other photographers because of COVID. All my Snowy images from different locations are with long lenses with mostly very drastic cropping because I do not want to bother them. When I was photographing this particular one, people in boats were getting quite close which seemed not wise. But it did not fly off.
Beautiful shot, Reed, and quite a memorable encounter. Snowy Owls show up periodically here in Virginia and there was one reported in Virginia Beach in late December 2020. I have not seen one, but hope I manage to see one someday. Like you, I would prefer to avoid a mob of wildlife photographers. There seems to be really good communication among birds and word is passed quickly when rare birds are spotted.
Thanks Mike! I have also seen them in multiple years at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in NJ. But there they were really far out in the fields, and I was using 400mm & 800mm with 2x teleconverters or stacked teleconverters which still required a lot of cropping. We were on the Wildlife Drive so they seemed to know they were safe there. But it was still fun to see them and get some images even if small in the frame.
Wonderful!
Thanks Belinda! It was a Fun Day! And a Great Photo Day!
Nice shot, Reed, that is totally unique to any SO photos I’ve seen!
Thanks so much Donna! I have to find more of my Raw files from that day to see if I have any flight files! But that might take a while!
It’s good that the surroundings are darker than the owl.
Yes! A few years ago I was photographing a Snowy Owl at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR. But the fields had some light snow covering. Made it hard to find and when I did the owl sort of blended in on a lot of the images! But was still fun to see Snow Owls!