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by ebkw on Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:06 am
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Last year at the Snowy Owls near Ottawa Chris Dodds took a photo of me in full winter gear. This includes all items mentioned in previous posts!

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by OntPhoto on Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:12 pm
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Last edited by OntPhoto on Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
 

by iclark on Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:30 pm
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Further comments on the article in OFONews by Christina Lewis. She makes reference to a Code of Conduct for birders, birdwatchers and photographers. This was developed by the Ottawa Field Naturalist's Club and the Ottawa RA Photo Club Nature Group. The RA (Recreational Association) is comprised of members of the Federal Public Service. I've attached a link to this Code of Conduct.
http://www.ofnc.ca/birding/Code-of-Conduct.pdf

The key words here are "THE WELFARE OF THE BIRDS MUST COME BEFORE OUR OWN INTERESTS".

I also encourage you to check out the OFN web site. http://www.ofnc.ca

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by OntPhoto on Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:47 pm
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iclark wrote:Further comments on the article in OFONews by Christina Lewis. She makes reference to a Code of Conduct for birders, birdwatchers and photographers. This was developed by the Ottawa Field Naturalist's Club and the Ottawa RA Photo Club Nature Group. The RA (Recreational Association) is comprised of members of the Federal Public Service. I've attached a link to this Code of Conduct.
http://www.ofnc.ca/birding/Code-of-Conduct.pdf

The key words here are "THE WELFARE OF THE BIRDS MUST COME BEFORE OUR OWN INTERESTS".

I also encourage you to check out the OFN web site. http://www.ofnc.ca

Ian Clark
Ottawa, Ontario
In this weekends bird column in the Ottawa Citizen, there is a note on both birders and photographers crowding bird feeder areas. My feeling on this is, always bring some food if you're visiting a feeder. If you're going to feeders, at least give something back which I always try and do. If all you do is take and take, it's kind of selfish.
 

by Charles Schleigh on Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:43 am
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We have already had at least 1/2 dozen snowy owls show up in western New York. Looks like the prediction was right on the mark.
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by OntPhoto on Sat Nov 22, 2008 6:53 am
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Charles Schleigh wrote:We have already had at least 1/2 dozen snowy owls show up in western New York. Looks like the prediction was right on the mark.
The Snowies are showing up here (Quebec, Ontario) like the Great Gray Owls did in winter 2004-2005, early and in fair numbers. I think this winter Snowies will be a common sight in a number of places. Keep an eye out for Hawk Owls too. Possibly you guys may see one.

You know what the funny thing is? Snowy Owls are showing up in many places but NONE so far at the Snowy Owl hotspot east of Ottawa.


PS. An unrelated Snowy Owl problem in Saskatchewan as reported on Newsworld (CBC). Ever hear a Snowy Owl calling? See report:
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/vsu/wmv-hi/ ... 081115.wmv


******First Boreal Owl report in Montreal, Quebec area. November 24th. http://www.passionphotonature.net/forum ... hp?t=14199
 

by OntPhoto on Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:52 pm
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The Snowy Owl hotspot east of Ottawa just got a bit smaller with some landowners having put up some "no trespassing" signs some time ago. But there are still other spots in the same area to photograph the Snowy Owls.
Translated via google so not all words make sense. Scroll down the page to the heading: "More than $100,000 to feed for a month owls below Ste-Rose?"
http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... l=fr&tl=en


This problem is not related to anyone having taken any photos this Fall as no Snowy Owls had even shown up yet until just yesterday. Something occurred behind the scenes recently. I only discovered the situation when I did the following. I first found out about the problem with land access to some fields (for any and all photographers including workshop etc.) in the area while browsing this thread in another forum (scroll down to a post by someone named Mao and another by Bobby): http://www.pixel-shooter.com/forum/show ... hp?t=17659





***I had mentioned previously that a photog told me that a farmer didn't mind photographers shooting Snowy Owls on his land. But he was upset with finding soft-drink cans and Tim Horton coffe cups on his land and in his ditches in the Spring. While I have no idea who was littering, it could be anyone including locals, people passing through, or even birders but photographers are the most visible so they may get blamed first. This applies no matter where you go to photograph, so practice good etiquette and take only pictures and leave only footprints.


More info about southward movement of Snowies. November 26, 2008.
An email to Ontbirds from Jean Iron today, November 26th, now indicates they're not sure what is causing the southward movement of Snowy Owls this Fall in Quebec and Ontario. The observation of mostly first year male Snowy Owls now have some reconsidering the reason for the current southward movement. "The Snowy Owl flight this fall and winter could be caused solely by high numbers of young being fledged this summer due to high lemming populations [during the Snowy Owl breeding season]." However, the report goes on to say that if a large number of adult Snowy Owls start to show up in the southward movement then they'll be more confident in saying there was a lemming crash up north.
See: http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/ontb ... est.html#1


Last edited by OntPhoto on Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
 

by snowywhite2 on Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:02 pm
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The $100,000 that Jacques is talking about is mostly profit in the boys pockets. Let face it, $2700 for 5 days and they pay hotel and transport. Thats pretty good money off the back of snowies. It will be an interisting winter.
 

by ebkw on Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:49 am
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There are lots of report of Snowy Owls in southern Manitoba so far along with hawk owls.
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by OntPhoto on Sat Nov 29, 2008 5:39 pm
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ebkw wrote:There are lots of report of Snowy Owls in southern Manitoba so far along with hawk owls.
Is this normal for southern Manitoba? Maybe not the Hawk Owls but what about the Snowies?
 

by jnadler on Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:30 pm
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There's more than having snowy owls to getting good photos. We have a couple in the area now, BUT . . .

The area that we get occasional snowy owls sucks for photography. Entirely private land so you can't leave the sides of the road if you respect private property as you should. (unless you meet a resident and ask permission). These are mainly homes and farms. The roads have heavy traffic. There are few good shoulders to pull off. The intensive human development around the fields means the owls are often perched on metal signs, old tractors, roof tops, and other poor perches. If you are so inclined to use mice for flight shots, there is no where to do this. If you are tempted to do it on the road, you are inviting the owls to an instant death from passing trucks going 50mph.
 

by Scott Linstead on Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:48 pm
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jnadler wrote:There's more than having snowy owls to getting good photos. We have a couple in the area now, BUT . . .
So true! You need the right geography, co-operative landowners, the right amount of snow and most importantly, a co-operative subject. Most of the snowies I have encountered have not been co-operative, last year being the exception. One more thing that you need is a low profile location and pray that it doesn't get picked up on the web!
 

by OntPhoto on Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:09 pm
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jnadler wrote:There's more than having snowy owls to getting good photos. We have a couple in the area now, BUT . . .

The area that we get occasional snowy owls sucks for photography. Entirely private land so you can't leave the sides of the road if you respect private property as you should. (unless you meet a resident and ask permission). These are mainly homes and farms. The roads have heavy traffic. There are few good shoulders to pull off. The intensive human development around the fields means the owls are often perched on metal signs, old tractors, roof tops, and other poor perches. If you are so inclined to use mice for flight shots, there is no where to do this. If you are tempted to do it on the road, you are inviting the owls to an instant death from passing trucks going 50mph.
Seems to be quite a decent place from what I have seen so far. Looks like you're managing despite the circumstances. Definitely respect private property by asking for permission. Respecting property also means not littering. Last winter I was out in a field with another photographer. This photographer brought along a big carton of a box. After our photo shoot the wind caught the box and blew it away. It ended up in the hedge near a house about maybe 80 to 100 yards away. It was cold with strong winds and sun had gone down. But I still went after that box. I waded through waist high snow in places with a backpack of camera gear. Took quite a long time to reach the box. Then I had to walk holding the box through deep snow back to the road where the other photog was standing (think he was nice and warm in his vehicle if I remember, not sure now if he was on the road). I considered it a priviledge to be able to photograph there and didn't want a cardboard box to potentially ruin it. BTW, this was before I got myself a pair of snowshoes.

The location where many of us photographed Snowies here last winter, some fields are no longer accessible. This was something I only discovered recently. Something that happened behind the scenes. The good news is that there are still fields you can photograph from. From what I understand, the "no trespassing" will be enforced. Keep in mind this is not due to anyone having photographed there recently. The story behind this is getting more interesting and strange with each person I speak to.


Last edited by OntPhoto on Sat Dec 06, 2008 2:33 am, edited 7 times in total.
 

by snowywhite2 on Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:08 pm
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Dear Ontphot, if you want the true story, please email me, I live there and have more stories than you can take.
 

by Skip on Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:49 am
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The Snowys seem to keep moving south. One was seen (and photographed) in Southwestern Ohio November 29th.
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by c.w. moynihan on Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:04 pm
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Perhaps those who do workshops can approach the farmers who have owls and no-tresspassing signs and work something out with them. Then, the participant group could have access to the fields without the maurading birders....and the potential problems that arise with them.
Christian

[i]Cuz I'm free as a bird now and this bird you cannot change ! [/i]
 

by Scott Linstead on Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:55 pm
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c.w. moynihan wrote:Perhaps those who do workshops can approach the farmers who have owls and no-tresspassing signs and work something out with them. Then, the participant group could have access to the fields without the maurading birders....and the potential problems that arise with them.
Precisely! There is nothing underhanded about this practice. It is private land after all.
 

by OntPhoto on Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:02 pm
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Skip wrote:The Snowys seem to keep moving south. One was seen (and photographed) in Southwestern Ohio November 29th.
Keep your eyes open. It's not even officially winter yet. You may see more.

c.w. moynihan wrote:Perhaps those who do workshops can approach the farmers who have owls and no-tresspassing signs and work something out with them. Then, the participant group could have access to the fields without the maurading birders....and the potential problems that arise with them.
Birders have binoculars and long scopes. They can see you from far away without needing to go into any field :wink: I respect birders and I believe we can all get along. It needs to be qualified though. To lump all birders together would be the same as lumping all photographers together. I don't see someone as a birder or non-birder or photographer or non-photographer. I see an individual. There are individuals who bird who are respectful people and some who are not. There are photographers who are respectful people and some who are not. The same goes for anyone no matter what it is they do. It's not what their hobby or profession happen to be but what they are as individuals.

The fields with the signs are the ones many photographed from last winter. There is still a good chunk of the same fields still open. And then there are many other open fields in the area, some of which now have Snowy Owls on them.


Last edited by OntPhoto on Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:10 pm, edited 5 times in total.
 

by srfnson on Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:15 pm
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ebkw wrote:There are lots of report of Snowy Owls in southern Manitoba so far along with hawk owls.
We've had snowies here in MB since early/mid October which is very early for us. It was a real treat to photograph them without snow and heavy winter gear on. I'm already seeing 5-10 snowies on my typical route I travel most weekends which is around peak numbers usually seen in Jan/Feb.

There's reports of greys coming in as well so hopefully we'll get a chance to photograph these birds as well as they've been pretty sparse in the last 2 years.
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by OntPhoto on Sat Dec 06, 2008 4:30 pm
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Whoo Hoo! Photographed my first Northern Hawk Owl of the season. What an owl. It put on a show the whole time I was there, catching about 4 to 5 mice/voles in the field. These were all natural prey. A group of us watched as it brought the mice/voles to hide or cache in the woods. Just before I left, it caught a rodent and we watched as it devoured it, first tearing the head off and then swallowing the rest of the body. This is looking to be a great winter for owl watching and photography.

http://www.pbase.com/golfpic/image/106756101/original

In addition to the fair-sized southward movement of Snowy Owls this Fall, there are a number of Northern Hawk Owls which have been spotted much farther south as well.

The Hawk Owl has been there for at least a week now. Based on what I saw today and its caching of some rodents, the owl may stick around for the winter. We'll see. :D

Dec. 10, 2008. Still not officially winter yet but getting close and sure looks like it here in Ottawa. In addition to a fair-sized snow fall we have a transit (city buses) strike. Back to owls. Hawk Owls are making their way further south now as the month progresses. In the Montreal area there have been 3 Hawk Owls reported, 2 in Varenne near Montreal and 1 in Laval just north of Monttreal.


Last edited by OntPhoto on Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 

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