After a good tip of one of my fellow photographers, I decided to go and find the Great Grey Owl in its natural habitat. I had already been looking in the Great Grey Owl reserve near Pinawa, and came up with nothing.

As it turns out, this year the owls are snubbing the reserve and prefer to go hunt near the road a bit north of Winnipeg. Good for me, I started to get tired of the road to Pinawa.

My weekends are sacred. During the week, my job requires me to sit, move my fingers and sit some more. All day long. Every day again. And again. So when the weekend knocks on the door, I’m all in for some outings and a lot of shooting. When the temps are reasonable, like around –25C, outside is the place to be. Preferably with some sunshine.

That the sun shines in Manitoba does not mean that it is warm, but at least it is light enough to shoot some wildlife. Last time I showed the Great Grey Owls, north of Winnipeg. During one of those shoots, a birder told me there were Snowy Owls a little southwest of the city. Snowy Owls, here I come!

Some time ago I was in Ukraine. Before the tortured ideas of a corrupted government decided to annoy the hell out of every intelligently thinking person in the country. When we were there, it was kind of quiet and laid back, so let’s not go into the politics of the country. There are other places for that.

In a village called Dubinka, people are living the old-fashioned way. Food is often cooked on a wood stove. A stove that needs attention and care. But once you have cut all that wood, you will want a drink…

It’s not easy to come up with good photographs to post when you don’t go outside. Usually I don’t mind low temperatures, but this winter has been on the cold side of things for me. When temps go as low as –37C then I don’t really relish the fact of going outside.

The fun is that after those frigid temperatures, nearly everything looks warm, it even feels like spring is around the corner. When I finally could open my frozen windows for the first time after a few weeks, I heard the birds sing and smelled the fresh air come in. For a moment I had the feeling that it was already spring.