By Tim Callahan
It all started last November when I was crossing the Big Mac. I prefer to cross the bridge after midnight. I usually have the whole bridge to myself, and I can have a short conversation with the toll attendant with nobody behind me.
“Have you seen the snowy owl,” she asked, as she shaped the four bucks out of my hand. “Really,” I said. “Now I’m going to be totally distracted up here.”
Every year, thousands of ducks – mostly redheads, bluebills, and a few canvasbacks – stage at the bridge, resting and feeding on their migration south. I sometimes try to snap a photo of the huge flotilla of diver ducks, but usually just get the guardrail and blurry pictures. And if I did see an owl up there, it’s not like I could pull over and take its picture. That Yugo and it’s unfortunate driver who went over the guardrail a while back comes to mind.
Once the Straits freeze up and the waterfowl fly south, the snowy owl heads to the Rudyard area.
On my first trip to Rudyard, the only owl I saw was the one on the sign proclaiming Rudyard the Snowy Owl Capital of Michigan. On my second trip, I didn’t see any owls. But the third was the ticket!
The white owl prefers large open fields with a high perch to watch over its hunting grounds, and Rudyard has a lot of flat alfalfa fields, fence rows, farm buildings, silos, and tall trees – perfect habitat.
My first sighting was on a farm southeast of town. I saw her gliding low over the field, then land on a fence post. Talk about perfect camouflage: I lost sight of her for a moment, then she flew up high to the top of a tall pine tree — a perch she claimed as her territory.
I was looking for photos of an owl in flight, and she was sitting high atop that tree, so it was a waiting game. As in most wildlife photography, patience is required. I run short on patience, especially when I’m freezing. It was 10 degrees outside, so I went back to the truck and decided to road trip around the block to warm up.
“Never leave fish to find fish,” says the wisdom of old. When I returned, the owl was still there, along with several new vehicles with their hazard flashers on. A whole army of snowy owl photographers with tripods and huge telephoto senses were on the scene. The white owl made her move, gliding down to a field close by, pouncing on a field mouse. She gulped it down with one bite, and the photographers high-fived each other.
I’ve always envied photographers. After they pull the trigger, their job is all done. Mine is just beginning! I pay my dues with the field research part; then I must get to work.
Unlike my field paintings, this one was done entirely in my studio from my photographs and field sketches. My setting will be the Mackinac Bridge in the winter, right before ice-up, which is when this story started. I used an airbrush to soften the sky and the owl. I chose a dark sky at sunset to contrast with the white snowy owl. And like field paintings, this is also a small picture. I will paint a larger rendition of this same painting using oils later.
I’d like to thank the village of Rudyard and all their patient residents for being the “Snowy Owl Capital” of Michigan and for hosting people from all over to catch a glimpse of this winter visitor from the Arctic.
