Oh, The Owls! A Trip to the Sax-Zim Bog

January 28, 2025

Like a lot of people, I love owls, but finding and photographing them can be quite challenging! Seeing a Grey Grey Owl in nature is something I’ve wanted to do for more than 20 years, but there is just no chance of that happening where I live in NE Ohio. I’ve known for a while that my best chance of seeing one of these mysterious and elusive owls was in northern Minnesota…and more specifically, the Sax-Zim Bog area. This is an area about an hour northwest of Duluth and about 14.5 hours drive from me. In January 2025 I finally made the trip! I could have saved some time and flown, but I prefer to drive because it just seems more adventurous and you never know what you could find along the way. The logistics seem easier and less chances of things going wrong, like canceled flights and messed up rental cars.

This was a particularly good year to look for owls because it is an irruption year for boreal species, like the Great Grey and the little Boreal Owl. This means that for various reasons, like food and climate, many more of these owls have migrated to the southern range of the boreal forest for the winter. I had hoped to see and photograph a Great Grey Owl when I started to plan this trip in early December, but it was luck that this turned out to be such a rare time to also see the cute boreal owls!

Of course, there were also lots of other interesting birds and wildlife in the bog and I only wish I could have had more time to see them. Some other wildlife I saw were snowshoe hares, mink, red fox, red squirrels, redpolls, ruffed grouse, Canada jays, northern shrike, purple finch, goldfinch, and a barred owl. If you would like to visit Sax-Zim, check out the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog’s website for a ton of valuable information.

All of the wildlife was photographed with an Olympus OM-1 + 300mm F4 Pro with a 1.4x teleconverter attached some of the time.

Finally back to Yellowstone!

July 1, 2019

My wife, Shelly and I went to Yellowstone back in 2005 and I couldn’t wait to get back and thought it would be a regular thing. Well...two kids were born, life got busy and we never made it back again until 14 years later! I love observing and photographing wildlife and I don’t think there is a better place than the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem...especially for a guy from Ohio.

This trip wouldn’t be an all out photography and exploration trip, but a family vacation. I was excited to share this experience with my age 10 and 11 year old girls, but I would need to make considerations for my usual way of doing things where photography is my main goal. One of those considerations was what gear to bring. My current wildlife setup is a Sony A73 paired with a Sigma 150-600. Of course, I would also need a wide angle lens or two for landscape if I were to bring the big tele. This setup seamed to cumbersome for a family vacation where I would surely be lugging around a backpack full of family necessities already, so I researched other options. I quickly discounted ideas like getting a Canon or Nikon with one of those superzooms like an 18-300mm because I didn’t want to invest in another system. I also looked into the Nikon P1000. 3000mm seems ridiculous, but a lot of Yellowstone wildlife viewing can be a half mile away from the valley road. But this camera is huge and I think I would be disappointed in the image quality since the camera has a small sensor and most of my pictures will be within a more reasonable distance anyway. After giving the Sony RX10iv a test drive, which has an equivalent 24-600mm lens and a 1 inch sensor, I bought a used copy and made this the camera for the trip. I couldn't be happier with the way the RX10iv handled almost all situations. The AF was plenty quick enough for anything I pointed the lens at. I shot up to ISO 6400 at dusk and the pictures are still quite acceptable and I really like the 24mm wide angle. I did also take my A7iii with 16-35 for when I wanted to be more creative with the wide angle, but it stayed in the car most of the time and I honestly could've done without it this trip.

We had 2 days in Grand Teton and 5 days in Yellowstone. This was a perfect amount of time to comfortably explore all the big areas of the parks and not feel rushed. When traveling with kids, it’s hard to get everybody up and moving in the morning, and this worked out to my advantage. I would get up around sunrise and look for good light, landscapes, and wildlife. I would be back to the cabin just around the time everybody wakes up. Shelly was a bit jealous, but she also didn’t want to get up at 5:30am, and we did all get up as a family at least one morning to go to Lamar Valley.

Wildlife was abundant! I kind of lost count of the exact numbers, but I think we saw around 16-18 bears, 10-12 moose, 5-6 wolves, a bunch of eagles and osprey, and all the bison, elk, and goats you could want! One morning, I saw 5 wolves trying to get at a dead bison calf and the mother fighting them off. I felt bad the girls didn’t see the wolves, but when we went back to that spot in the evening, the mother was gone and one wolf was trotting off with a hind leg. Sad, but what an amazing wild scene to witness.

YNP and GTNP had plenty of amazing scenery and thermal features to see as well. The girls saw their first mountains in the Tetons, and of course, Old Faithful, along with the abundant hot springs, geysers, and mud pots were thrilling to experience. I think the kids were a perfect age for the Yellowstone experience and will never forget the close encounters we had with these wild creatures and the unique thermal features this land has to offer!

I’m happy with the photography that came out of this trip and would recommend the RX10iv as a do everything travel camera to anyone that expects quality, but wants to go light.

The Snowy Owl

January 5, 2015

I’ve been chasing snowy owls for years, trying to get “The Shot.” I’ve made dozens of trips, driving hundreds of miles the last 15 years, scoping out, the cold and windy Lake Erie coast. I’ve gotten a few blurry pics of white dots that you’ll just have to trust me are Snowy Owls from the great North Country. It should’ve happened last year. The 2013-14 winter saw a huge Snowy Owl irruption, the biggest in half a century. I did manage to get a passable photo of a flying Snowy off the Cleveland coast, but nothing I was really proud of. Then finally this December, after hearing that some Snowy’s were seen back at Presque Isle State Park in PA, I made the short 2 hour drive.

Success! After a two hour drive and 1.5 mile hike, I was ecstatic to find two owls in close proximity posing for me and about a dozen other photographers and birders! I packed my Nikon D750 and Tamron 150-600mm, and am glad I did. Even with the birds being relatively close, I still wanted to keep as much distance as possible, and 600mm was necessary. I set my camera to manual and kept my aperture at f/8, and adjusted my shutter from about 1/2000 - 1/640 depending on activity. I wish I had taken a monopod so that I could've dropped the ISO for some of the grounded photos and also shoot some video. I don’t like to use a tripod for wildlife, because I feel a bit too restricted with movements.

This doesn’t seem to be another large irruption year, like ‘13-14, but still a better than typical opportunity to see these amazing owls. Keep your eye on the North coast, brake walls, and large fields for these mysterious northern visitors!