For Christmas, a friend of mine signed me up for a wildlife photography walk. The only downsides, it’s an hour away, and starts at 07:00… yay.

Life Wild

Pulling into the parking lot, there were already people prepping cameras. Big cameras. Like Canon 800 and 1200mm big. They weren’t part of the walk, they were trying their luck for something I’ll get to later.

Seven o’ clock rolled around faster than the sun. We all gathered at the start of the trail, made some introductions, and got to it.

One of the first things we saw, was a bald eagle. Sadly, while the freedom bird was out, the sun was still working on it. So here’s a grainy photo.

We continued down, seeing more birds. A hawk, a ton of geese. But I was just waiting for more light. Pretty soon we ran in to those guy from the parking lot. The ones with the super lenses. Turns out, this park has a couple of otters. And they were trying to snap a pic. From what I overheard, the otters are pretty camera shy. Like if you come every morning, you might see them once a week.

We stopped, and tried our luck for the otters. While we waited, there was a great blue heron.

We gave up on the otters. It was looking like they weren’t going to show. So we kept walking.

By this point, we had seen a fair number of animals. But then the guy running the walk told us the park was “unusually quiet” today. We weren’t done with the walk yet, and I was already thinking about coming back to this place.

A couple hours later, we wrapped up the walk. All of us had really enjoyed it, other than it being overcast, and 15 degrees on the water. At the end, the guy running the walk dropped us a lead. Twenty minutes away at Regan National Airport (DCA), a snowy owl was spotted a couple days ago. And, it was still there…

To The Airport!!

I drove straight to the airport. Well, to the park right next to it. I was told it was near the boat ramp, but it was going to be a reach for any lens. So I went down the ramp, and onto the little pier.

Yeah, those aren’t the owl. So I headed into back up into the park. And then, I saw it. Not the owl. But birders, huddling around a scope, like they spotted an owl.

So I went up and asked. And yes, they spotted the owl. Just barely.

Do you see it?

That’s a snowy owl, in DC!!

Bird Brain

This was a fun thing. Absolutely worth getting up at 05:00. I am definitely going back to that park. Just hopefully on a less overcast day.