So I decided to head out to see if the snowy owls were still hanging around in Boundary Bay. Before heading for the dyke and the owls, I decided to check out the eagle situation. The park across from Boundary Bay airport is home to many bald eagles during the winter months. There is so many that there really is no need to go to Brackendale.




After the eagles, I drove down to the dyke to see if the owls were still there. The weather wasn’t great but the owls and the papparazzi were out in still out in numbers. I didn’t have the energy to wander out into the march and most of the owls were hanging out near the trail so I just decided to set up in one place. I didn’t stay too long though as even though they are magnificent creatures, there is only so many photos I can take of sleeping owls. Hopefully I will be back before the owls start heading north again.



I wanted to try to get a little closer to the owls this time so I decided to break out the big guns and I rented a Nikon 400mm F2.8 and 1.4 teleconverter. Let me tell you that this is one beast of a lens. I had to rent a heavy duty tripod and gimbal head just to mount it. It was expensive but I figured it was still cheap compared to the $9000 price tag for the lens alone.
While the set up worked great and the image quality was excellent it had one drawback. It was awkward to lug around. Once set up, it was a dream to use but anytime I wanted to move locations it was a pain in the butt. I can deal with heavy but the fact that it was awkward really deters from moving locations. It was a good experience though and I am glad I rented it to experience what the pros use.