To all the Tolkien fans out there who caught that obscure reference in the title, I regret to inform you that this article has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings, or any other fantasy novel. Rather, this is a flashback to the summer of 2016, when I spent my days as a US Forest Service employee in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in northern California. Here I surveyed for a bird species of great conservation concern and controversy, as it has been listed as ‘Threatened’ under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1990, and was listed as ‘Endagered’ under the California Endangered Species Act during my term with the USFS. In case there is still confusion about the identity of the famous bird species I was chasing around all summer, here is a photo I captured of one particular individual on a dark night late in August.
This is of course, the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), and I might add that this is one of the most difficult images I have ever captured. First off, it took me more than two months of daily surveying to hear so much as a hoot from a spotted owl, so I was not set up for success to begin with.
The field season began on June 13, a mere two days after graduating from college with my fisheries and wildlife science degree. I hopped in my beat up old Subaru and sped down to the Shasta National Forest, filled with with excitement for all of the owls I would get to see and photograph. Little did I know, I would have to be very patient when it came to owls. The fact was, the spotted owl population was sparse in that area due to years of destruction of suitable habitat, and the ones that were around were very shy. Usually this species is very responsive when called by a human (or another owl), but not this season. One explanation that I heard from multiple owl experts was that many pairs in many different regions were not breeding in 2016, which made them less responsive to other owls, and thus, to the recorded calls of wildlife technicians.
Was all lost just because I had not yet encountered one of these mysterious owls? Certainly not! I was, after all, stationed in California’s largest National Forest, which to me meant endless other images waiting to be captured. From waterfalls to expansive views of the Milky Way; Shasta-Trinity had it all.
As m
ost folks know, owls are nocturnal, and therefore like to hangout and go about their business in the dead of night. Consequently, this meant that most of my hooting surveys were conducted after sunset. To paint a picture, each night I had to hop in the truck, equipped with a device that played owl calls, and spend the night driving through the woods alone to various locations to hoot. I have to say, the Boogeyman becomes a very real creature when you’re alone in the woods at night for hours on end.
Even with the unfortunate lack of owls, I was frequently presented with some of my favorite types of shooting opportunities: the night sky. I have always loved creating imagery that shows just how tiny we are within the universe. I think such images are a good reminder to stay humble and remember to preserve our tiny speck of cosmic dust called ‘Earth’. The beauty of the remote nature of the Shasta-Trinity was the complete and total absence of any light pollution, making massive Milky Way vistas readily available for shutter-happy photographers like myself.
So my summer continued, and I was still without owl sightings. Aside from a terrifying abundance of ground yellow jacket nests, and a near fatal encounter with a mother black bear, owl surveys became simple routine. With that said, however, there is nothing simple about the conservation dilemma concerning spotted owls, especially today.
The spotted owl issue dates back to the late 80’s and early 90’s, and is one that the general public has been heavily involved with. In the early days when it was first brought to attention that spotted owls were in trouble due to extensive over-harvest of old-growth forests, large protests by environmental groups and concerned citizens took place, and people even tried to block logging operations by tying themselves to trees. Those were the days! As mentioned earlier on, the owls were added to the federal Endangered Species List in 1990, and the course of timber harvest in the Pacific Northwest was forever changed.
Flash forward to present. Spotted owls are still threatened and declining, and they have a new “nemesis”: the barred owl (Strix varia). Bigger, sexier, more aggressive and easily satisfied, the barred owl is said to be in competition with spotted owls, and contributing to their continued declines. They have even been observed killing spotted owls! Observational studies have confirmed such interactions, and now there is action being taken against this competitor. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to kill as many as 4,650 barred owls over 3-10 years to see if spotted owl populations will recover to any degree. Like the original decline and listing of spotted owls, this proposal has caused a high level of uproar. Barred owls are also very charismatic and beautiful, so there are those who believe that they have a right to exist and should not be killed to make up for our past mistakes.
This is all pretty depressing and confusing, huh? How about a shot of one of my favorite waterfalls in the area to lighten things up! This is Middle Falls, on the majestic and beautiful McCloud River.
After two and a half months, I heard it: the distant four note call of a female northern spotted owl. Hoo…Hoo hooooo…Hooo. It was a moment I’ll never forget, and it sent chills up my spine. I had finally found what I came to this place hoping to find. Suddenly the spookiness of the woods at night became insignificant, almost laughable. I was too excited. At this point I turned off the recording and responded to her with my own voice. Moments later, a male answered with a much deeper four note call. Ten minutes past, and I heard a branch break high in a tree behind me. I shined my headlamp upward, and saw two full-grown spotted owls staring directly at me, a mere fifteen feet away. Here I was, literally talking face-to-face with two of the most wonderful birds I had ever laid eyes upon. I didn’t even care that it was too dark to get photos; I wanted to savor the moment, and learn all that they had to teach.
About a week later, I went back, prepared this time to capture high quality images of these wild winged beasts. Myself and two fellow technicians hiked in to the area where I first detected the owls just before sundown and began hooting. Within a half hour, the owls responded. We followed their voices in to the darkening forest, and were soon greeted by their curious approach. We came prepared with an offering of live white mice, which is standard procedure in spotted owl surveys. I set up my camera and 300mm lens on a tripod, and mounted my flash to the top. I was beginning to worry that it would be too dark to obtain any sort of attractive focus, as no one brought any sort of spotlight.
We placed one of our volunteers (a white mouse) on the ground in the line of sight of one of the owls. He swooped silently down on to a perch ten feet in front of us and began to watch the mouse with interest, moving his head back and forth. There was no time to waste, so I began shooting. Miraculously, the stars aligned and my camera achieved perfect focus time and time again in near darkness. I shot like a mad man for the next hour, and came out with some portraits of these owls that I felt validated the last two months of work.
So that’s the story of my summer in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest of northern California. I feel lucky to have lived and worked in such a beautiful place, and to have met an owl species of such great conservation concern in its natural habitat. I hope that this has inspired you to get out there and try to have an encounter with an owl, or even just go hiking in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Most importantly, I hope you’ve learned something new about the issues other living creatures face due to our consumptive nature.
I’d like to end with a few more photos of the intense scenery surrounding Mount Shasta. Keep up with this page if you’d like to continue to hear stories of the things and places I photograph!
