We all know that Snowy Owls are basically white, right?

Well, when photographing outdoors, what our brain interprets as white is often not so.
For example, when looking at snow in the shade, early morning, or late afternoon we rarely see pure white, but our brain and our expectations interprets what we see as white.

Here, with a low February winter setting sun at about 17:00h, our white Snowy Owl takes on the wonderful colours of reflected light.

Although this humorous behavioural image is amusing to observe, it is an important observation for bird photographers who specialize in flight shots. Birds often defecate prior to taking off in flight. It is a warning for us to get ready for that much-anticipated takeoff.

Canon 40D with 100-400L lens @ 1/1000, f6.3, ISO 400 at 360mm focal distance. Slight crop for composition purposes.

Cheers,

Mike