The Snowy Owl 2014-2015 season in my area is rapidly coming to a close.

The owls will soon be migrating back north - they have to be on site for mating towards the end of April, and I'll be giving my poor wrecked knees a good rest.

March in Quebec City has been very cold, and we recently had two good back-to-back snow falls which did not melt, which probably extends the owls' stay. The Snowys still have a nice snow cover in the fields to entice me to go out after them.

Today, there was a veil of clouds, which prevented me from getting the setting sun with its magnificent light that I so much love. Also with the cloud cover, the colours were muted to a more dull pastel look. This was late afternoon, so on top of that, the cloud cover reduced the normal intensity of light making the image darker.

I had two options in formatting the photo - keep it pastel, or add a bit of contrast and saturation to boost the overall look so that it pops out more. Either one would have looked good - just different. Although my camera saw the scene as dull pastel, my eye on site saw it more as my interpretation here.

Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens offhand at 1/1000, f/11, ISO 800, +1/2 exposures compensation. Slight crop for composition purposes. The sky and wood background blurred to reduce noise. Some dust-bunnies cloned away.