Calgary, Canada January 2025

January 2025 and another trip back to Calgary in Alberta, Canada for a few days Owling with Ken Anderson Photography again. If you are looking for an ethical local guide then you wont find better than Ken. Having had such a great trip the previous year when it looked like it was going to be a good year for Snowy Owls out there I reached out to Ken and he was able to fit me in for 4 days guiding.

In the build up to the trip it looked like I might be in for a treat with the weather with several real cold fronts coming through. As it happened in the end they had really cold weather the week before I arrived, pretty mild reaching heights of 11 or 12 degrees C during the day until the day after I left when they were due to go back really cold again. There also hadn’t been as much snow as usual this year and in Calgary itself there was none. Thankfully out in the Prairies and more rural areas there was still snow; but not as much as you would expect.

As before; the day started before sun rise with an early pickup from the hotel. We opted to split the days half looking for the Snowy Owls and the other half Great Greys and anything else we might spot in-between. We alternated between doing morning with Snowy and afternoon with GGO to morning with GGO and afternoon with Snowy to get a variety of conditions.

Generally speaking each day we were seeing between 5-8 Snowy Owls and 2 or 3 Great Greys. We also spotted an unexpected Barred Owl and a distant Hawk Owl too.

It was really great to see the Snowy Owls out in the snow covered landscape. They are incredibly flighty and often sat way out in the distance. We did however get lucky had some wonderful encounters with them and I’m very pleased with the images I came home with and more importantly the memories from being there and experiencing spending a little time with them.

Below is a gallery with a selection of the images from my trip.!