Calgary Owl Adventure
By Mick Griffin
The year was 2019, the first and only time I had been in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My primary reason for being there was to see the Snowy Owl, a most beautiful creature, evolutionarily adapted and designed to survive in the Arctic climate. The only way for this particular San Francisco Bay area resident to see a Snowy Owl was to fly north to Calgary in the darkest depth of the Canadian winter. Was I crazy to do this at a time when Canadians were flying south to Mexico for a few months to escape the bitter cold and short days?
Snowy Owl by Mick GriffinAs any fellow birder will appreciate, birding or a desire to see a particular species is an inexplicable obsession where logic fails to apply.
So yes, I booked the shortest, most direct flight possible (United Airlines, San Francisco to Calgary, approx 2 hrs & 45 minutes), and I was on my way to Calgary.
I had very limited time to spend in Calgary, so before I left I found a local bird guide, environmental biologist Dan Arndt, who grew up in the area and compiled wildlife field studies for the Alberta Provincial government and companies applying for mineral, gas, oil exploration permits in Alberta. He knew the area, terrain, wildlife and in particular, the avian population like the back of his hand. He also turned out to be an incredibly amiable companion and enthusiast of outdoor life in general.
Dan met me at my hotel in minus 10 degrees celsius temperatures at 7am on our first day together, and, in a nutshell my trip initially was a success. It took a couple of hours but we found and photographed many Snowy Owls together. There are many, many miles of flat agricultural roads around Calgary that we scoured, but there they were, either sitting on the flat snowy Tundra or perched higher up on the ubiquitous telephone poles and wires. But hold on… where was the Great Grey Owl! We hadn’t seen a single one. The Great Grey Owl had not been my target species but I had assumed it would be a formality to see at least two or three individuals. I was only with Dan for two days, with half of arrival day and half of departure day on my own scouring the more local city parks, lakes and rivers for species such as Bohemian Waxwing, Black-capped, Boreal and Mountain Chickadees, Canada Jay, Bald Eagles and Rough-legged Hawks.…