In November we traveled thousands of miles to a lodge about 70 miles north of Churchill Canada. Our main goal was to photograph polar bears. We were also hopeful to photograph arctic fox, the Northern Lights and Snowy Owls. The polar bears and arctic fox worked out well and you can see a number of these images in the "Galleries/Recent Photos" area of our www.frierworks.com website. We never saw the Northern Lights as the weather didn't cooperate. The only snowy owl we saw was one flying by, very far away. I was disappointed not to get a chance to photograph this beautiful bird. All that travel to find out that the snowy owls winter in our hometown of Ocean Shores, Washington. There are several state and federal wildlife sanctuaries adjacent to Ocean Shores and we found this one in the Damon Point State Wildlife Sanctuary. It a long walk out to the sanctuary and at high tide the path is underwater. Its worth the effort as the sanctuary is beautiful.
The owls favorite food is small arctic mammals called lemmings .The owls have a more or less regular population cycle depending on the amount of lemmings in the arctic. Every 5 years the population of both lemmings and snowy owls peaks and this is one of those years.
You can travel the world and sometimes the best subjects show up in your own backyard.
