Ghosts of the North

Northern Hawk Owl                           21 February 2010

I have a good friend who does not like the cold very much.  As I age, I am finding that I am the same.  As I work into my forties, the cold hurts.  Bruce agrees.   Bruce Leventhal and I have been friends for twenty years now, and we continue to amaze each other with a deliberate desire to throw ourselves into bitter winter mornings.  We endure honest, brutal pain for the spectacular images that rise up, almost as ghosts, from deadly, splintering cold.   Sometimes working without gloves at 24degrees below zero Fahrenheit, we shoot for the “fire mist” that rises from open water at sunrise.

Bruce and trusty tripod entering the bitter cold of a spectacular morning

 

Meeting in the dark of pre-dawn, we walk into silent, muffled, snowy winterscapes with deep and serious cold warning us to turn back.  We endure. The images are often unique and spectacular.  The physical abuse is equally spectacular, but it may not translate well on film.   When you see hoar frost and deep orange hues of winter, understand that the clear night sky and the rising cobalt blue day have allowed the warmth of the previous day to be squandered to outer space.   In the wrong circumstances, this kind of cold can be life-threatening.  

 

Winter wildlife in Northern Wisconsin occupies a different set of ecological niches.  Those who remain year round dramatically alter their ways of life when the cold sets in.  Many who arrive here in winter have come from the far boreal, Canada’s deepest evergreen forests where humans sometimes do not even exist.    

It is these high boreal species that make the winter pain turn to pleasure.  Our adrenaline is fueled by those animals who fail to understand “human.”  These are the fearless and untainted residents of truly wild places.   To them, Bruce and I are Ghosts of the North, merely harmless specters of shadow that move about at the fringes of their daily pursuits of survival.     We work in humble respect for the animal’s own needs as it balances on the razor’s edge, but we are invigorated by such stunning and cooperative subjects.   Pain is currency, and an agreeable contract is reached. 

 

 

Bruce and I have flanked a very cooperative Northern Hawk Owl.  We are working slowly to bring the light to our advantage, and the bird is not even intrigued by our lunging steps as we plow thigh-high through the glistening powder.   We stop to catch a breath and to survey the conditions unfolding before us.   In the distance, a growing crescendo, a wailing siren, we hear a wolf howl.  The wolf continues to howl for a while, and, in my mind’s eye, I see where it is.  Just a half mile away, it is working to the end of a forested peninsula and may well be ready to cross into an endless sea of frozen sedges. It never manifests to the eye, remaining a fellow northwoods phantom. The Northern Hawk Owl tips his head quizzically, the sunlight bouncing from a deeply yellow eye.  He looks fierce for a second but settles into a nearly comical cuteness.  He stretches and fluffs a luxurious coat of long feathers.   Our cameras hum to life.  Fingers grow cold again.  Snow freezes to knees where heat escapes clothing.  This is winter.  This is winter living.  I feel alive!

 

The rewards are addictive. Why do we keep destroying ourselves?!?  Working with such animals creates an intense emotional high coupling with the heroic feelings of euphoria that follow working in such conditions.  We continue to damage our fingers and toes for the love of the art. It is worth it, so, so worth it!  Sometimes, as all of the pieces come together at once, the light, the composition, the unique moment, the thrill of being nothing more than an invisible ghost bearing witness to such wildness, it seems all a dream.  Maybe that is just the numbness setting in.   As we age, our bodies are paying the toll.   But now, as winter arrives, I find myself hoping, wishing, dreaming of brutal cold.  I want the orange fire mists that rise from the water.  I want the front row seat to willing wildlife.  I want, again, to be a Ghost of the North.   And, with the sorrow I feel in each passing February, year after year, I have to wonder.  Maybe we don’t dislike it at all.  Maybe such brutal conditions in winter are forces we have grown to deeply love.   I miss you, Winter.  Come back brutally, harshly, in epic cold. There is art to be made.

These images were shot with a Canon 30D and a Canon Rebel xTi, using Canon 300mm f4 IS L and Canon EF 100-300.  Bruce and I did very well on this day! in 2010.  It is great to have a friend who is also a survival buddy!   To more great cold days ahead!
The Northern Hawk Owl... Hawk or Owl?  It is an owl, but it lives a diurnal (daytime active) life.  In many ways, its form and functions are convergent with hawks and falcons, but the facial discs are still used to locate mice beneath the snow.  While it flies swiftly like a hawk, this bird is all owl by phylogeny.   Northern Hawk Owls cache food in standing dead trees, and this Northern Hawk Owl was observed to catch and eat short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda) and red-backed vole (Myodes gapperi) in the hours and days I observed it.  Twice, I observed it tend to food caches.