Program – Owl: A Year in the Lives of North American Owls

Award-winning photographer Paul Bannick will use his intimate yet dramatic images to illustrate four different nesting owl species—Northern Pygmy-Owl, Burrowing Owl, Great Gray Owl, and Snowy Owl —throughout the course of the year in four distinct habitats. Each stage in an owl’s life will be presented through rare images: courtship, mating, and nesting in spring; fledging and feeding of young in summer; dispersal and learning independence in fall; and, finally, winter’s migrations and competitions for food.

In addition to the four featured owls, photos and videos of the fifteen other species of North American owls are also included in the lecture. Bannick’s startling images present shared owl behaviors as well as some surprising exceptions and adaptations. More than just a backdrop, the four featured owl habitats—forest, grassland and steppe, boreal, and Arctic—reveal wildly rich images and stories of their own.

Paul Bannick is an award-winning author and wildlife photographer specializing in the natural history of North America with a focus on birds and habitat. He is the author of two books including The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America’s Most Iconic Birds. His work can be found prominently in bird guides from Audubon, Peterson, The Smithsonian, Stokes, the National Wildlife Federation and in several volumes of the The Handbook of the Birds of the World.