A famous Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge Eastern Screech Owl gives us an audience

Mark Garfinkel · Dec 24, 2022

It’s sometimes not about the photographic outing, or the photographs you take, but the people you meet. On Wednesday (12-21-2022) morning I started out from my home base in Wilmington, De, to start my downstate run. My first stop was in Dover, De. Having finished in Dover I then heading to the Rehoboth Beach area for my second job. I’m not one to sit on the beach (too cold anyway and don’t like sand) and having some free time on my hands and with the camera in the truck anyway, I headed off to the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge for the first time. I was originally thinking of going to the Cape Henlopen State Park, as I have been there many times before but decided this time to go somewhere different close by. Towards the back of the refuge, I noticed another photographer. It looked like he was wrapping up for the day. He approached my truck and told me about the Screech Owl than was within 100’ of the tree line. He told me where to look, but as the saying goes “I couldn’t see the forest for the trees”. See, I was looking for an owl on a tree branch as I’ve seen them before in that manor. I was not expecting the owl to be in a hollow of a tree about 20’ up and almost blending in with his surroundings. We started talking about photography, different photographers, locations, retailers and our equipment. I spotted the owl as the clouds were moving out, the sun rays were filtering through the woods and onto the owl. I looked through my camera and the owl opened one eye. At that point, the other photographer said “maybe I should set up again” and he did. It was cool to watch the sun moving South to South-West over the next 45 minutes and noting the lighting change on the owl. Good times must come to an end, and I had to go back to work and he had a long drive back home. It was great encounter and I would be honored to shoot alongside him again.