Once again, a trip along Alberta’s Highway 11 from the Rocky Mountains to Nordegg doesn’t disappoint for wild life.
This time around, I spotted a grey owl sitting on the remains of a sign post along the side of the road.
I stopped on the side of the road, swapped out the lens of my Nikon D3200 camera and turned around to drive back, hopefully not to spook the owl perched on the sign.
As I drove closer, I spotted a second owl in the trees and decided to stop here for my photo shoot.
I crept cautiously forward, a part of me wanted to spook the owl and get some photos of him(her?) in flight, but the more I looked into the brilliant yellow eyes of the owl, the less I wanted to disturb it.
After getting the above photo, I backed away and proceeded to walk down the road a bit further. The owl I originally spotted was still on the broken sign post, and like the other one, this one too, let me get quite close for some photos.
So what is with “The Phantom of the North”?
It turns out this owl is a “Great Grey Owl”, otherwise known as the “Phantom of the North”.
They exist across Canada and the Northern United States, as well as from Finland to across Northern Asia.
The Great Grey Owl is considered the largest owl by length, but the size of it is deceiving because of the massive amount of plumage on this bird.
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