Great Grey Owl Photography

The Great Grey Owl has been on my radar for many years, but I have never found one to photo before. I have searched for them in Gothenburg and in the most northern part of West Gothland where I know there had been Owls reported.

So when I made up my mind to travel to Närke to photo the Red-throated Diver, then I just had to visit the neighboring province of Västmanland to see if I would be more lucky there.

Västmanland is one of the few places where I know the chance to be good if you like to try and photo the Great Grey Owl here in Sweden. I didn´t knew if I would have any success on my own even if I knew where to find the Owls so I contacted a tour operator, Bird Safari Sweden, to see if it was possible to have a guided trip. It sure was, but they told me it might be difficult as the grass had gotten long at the meadows where the Great Grey Owl usually hunt and that they soon would move into the woods and stay there until next breeding season.

Still I felt it was a chance I had to take and I would try both a morning and an afternoon session to see what it would bring.

My guide would be Niclas Lignell who turned out to be a nice fellow with a huge knowledge about the Owls and the habitat at hand. He gave me a heads up about what could be expected at the site if the Great Grey Owl appeared.

The light was glorious at the start of the afternoon session, but sadly no Owl appeared until after the sun had come down under the tree line. That meant I had to shoot at high ISO to getting any images at all. It would have been nice to get crisper pictures, but it wasn´t to be this time.

The Great Grey Owl stayed on site for a good amount of time and it acted more or less exactly as Niclas had told me. So, I got mad of myself when I saw it land exactly where I had stood before I switched to a different place to get a better overview of the Great Grey Owl’s approach. Lesson hopefully learnt.

Still I got a couple’ of decent photos that you can see in the gallery. I went back in the morning without any luck at all as the Great Grey Owl was absent even if it seemed to be unsuccessful during its hunting attempt during the afternoon session.

I will clearly go back next year and stay for a couple of days to see what I can do then so until then enjoy the gallery.