The big grey

The big grey It's the first time I've had the chance to meet the hypnotizing gaze of a great gray owl so early in the season. When I arrived, she was sleeping on her perch. The sky was overcast and the light was imposing a certain technical challenge on me. However, beyond photographing it, I wanted to observe its behavior. Once the sun went down, almost mechanically, the owl opened its eyes and stretched its right wing. Badly positioned, I couldn't take any pictures because of the branches behind which it was standing. It was then that it spread its other wing twice in a row leaving me just enough time to capture this angle of view. Then, warmed up from her long nap, she took off. Silently, like a leaf carried by the night, she perched on a stump at eye level. The light was weak, the blue hour was at its peak. Her piercing yellow eyes were still clearly visible to me through the darkness. She swayed her head in quick swings. Watching and listening to the slightest movement in the icy reeds in front of her. I left the place as I could only see her imposing perched silhouette looking far off towards the river. The arrival of this bird in our territory is a real chance. Could it be the harbinger of a winter rich in the observation of this species? No one really knows. It is said that an invasion of Great Gray Owls can occur every 5 or 10 years on our territory. Some censuses in southern Quebec report more than 600 observations in the early 2000s in a single season. When food becomes scarcer in the north, they come to visit us. Last winter I had the chance to photograph one. During one morning, I was alone with her. Besides the undeniable beauty of the bird, it is also one of the less shy. It does not fear humans and seems almost always to accept their presence during its hunting periods. My first encounter with it was in 2012, at Cap-Tourmente. I remember as if it were yesterday the emotion I felt. She was hunting a few meters away from me and I was able to photograph her with a small shrew in her beak (I slide the image in commentary). The span of its spread wings and the silence of its flight had made me mute. Since that day, with each first snowfall, a memory of this traveler crosses my mind. It reminds me that northern winters are much more arid than ours and that certain species find a haven of abundance.