Seeing Life Through Another Lens
By Ian Gair
2025
For my whole life, I have had to deal with my mother’s insistence on getting pictures of me and my brother anywhere we went, and anything we did. This convinced me that photography was a chore. I found it surprising that I would end up doing the same, only with birds, which never listen to you or sit still for more than a few seconds. Even so, this hobby has become a great way for me to learn about the birds that I adore so much as well as share them with other people, since they should notice them too.
Birds are generally the worst things to photograph. Many of them do not choose to stay put, many fly and are silhouetted against the sky, and more are sitting still but are so far away that one would be lucky to get a picture with more than a few pixels of bird in it. My goal to get nice photos of as many different species as possible has led me on some fun adventures that have taught me how valuable it is to have biodiversity in our world.
My favourite story is that of a short-eared owl that spent its winter on the Old Course, just a 30 or so minute walk from town. Owls are birds of prey like buzzards and eagles, but they’re nocturnal, which adds to their allure because they aren’t often seen outside of the nighttime hours, which means most people don’t see one. This of course meant I had to get a picture of this one. Since the owl was often seen hunting during the afternoon hours of the day, it was often in good enough lighting to be photographed.
The first outing to specifically find the owl was an afternoon where someone in the Birding Society had said in the group chat that they had seen it on the old course. I quickly got my camera, borrowed my friend’s bike, and hit the road. I made it a few minutes later and spent my time walking along the paths between the golfers with binoculars in hand and scanning every owl sized bird in the hopes that it would be the owl.
After some walking and looking, I finally caught a glimpse of a bird that didn’t fly like the crows or gulls. It gracefully swept over and around the dunes, flying behind some of them which made it harder to follow. I immediately reached for my camera, and:
Short-eared Owl on the Old Course Source: Ian Gair
It was blurry. Flying birds are very difficult to both focus on and to get a clear photo of. They move quickly relative to the surroundings, so the shutter speed needs to be a lot higher, which means you also have to turn up your exposure. Even if you do that, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to get the camera to focus on the bird, since cameras love gorse bushes much more than owls. This did not deter me, however, and so I pressed on, hoping to get another encounter with this beautiful and bird.
The next time I went to the golf course was another Birding Society trip, with many of the society members joining the search. We decided to split up to cover more of the course. I went south, down to the middle of Outhead (the peninsula with golf courses next to West Sands) and sat on a hill and waited. This time, the owl came up much closer, to the point that I doubted my ID since I thought owls were quite shy. It spent its time flying right over golfers’ heads, who were all oblivious to the bird that had captured the attention of me and many others that winter. Like last time, I got my camera out of my bag and:
Short Eared Owl on the Old Course (again) Source: Ian Gair
I had gotten a better picture this time, only the owl was blurry since it was flying too fast and I hadn’t thought to change the settings before it swooped past. Even though I hadn’t gotten a good photo, it was still magical that such a mysterious bird was so close to me. It glided straight past people’s heads and right in front of me, only 20 metres away. It didn’t seem shy of humans at all, simply going about its business on a golf course of all places. This time I spent on the golf courses made me appreciate that a place that is characterized by mown grass and “perfect” (boring) landscape was actually a place that was shared with nature, not just golfers. The gorse bushes and edges of the golf course provided habitats for rabbits, linnets, skylarks, and even a short-eared owl. To see an ecosystem somehow exist in a landscape that is tailored to be “perfect” and artificial is a comforting sight. It is a good example of how it is very possible to maintain a biodiverse environment while still enjoying the things we already do, like golf.
My final encounter with the owl was along Balgove Bay, the coastline along the Eden estuary on the western side of the golf courses. I had been filming some geese and eiders in the estuary when I saw a familiarly unusual flight pattern to my right, and looked closer to see that it was the owl. I immediately took up my camera, remembered to change the settings, and started taking as many photos as I could. I ended up with this:
I had finally done it. The bright yellow of the eyes and the pale face contrast with the rest of the body. The beak peaks out between soft feathers and the wings are a striped mix of browns and whites. In those details is the beauty of a picture. I find the photo to be beautiful in part because of the awe-inspiring thought that every colour in it is caused by life and by nature. The owl’s feathers are not computer-generated, not mathematically perfect, and yet years of evolution has brought them to match colours such as the grasses in the background, a colour coordination that is simply brought about by the natural world and random chance. I enjoy photography because it allows me to appreciate beauty in nature as well as share it with my friends and family whenever they ask, “What have you been up to at university?” My answer often involves more pictures of birds than it does academic work since birds are prettier anyway.
My photography is only made possible by the maintenance and active protection of wild plants and animals. In the Biodiversity Literacy VIP, I have come to understand what it means to work towards that goal as a university rather than it being an exclusively individual effort. From allowing unmowed grasses to grow to allocating space for natural habitat, these efforts have the potential to maintain a beautiful and varied landscape around our university and beyond. In doing so, we preserve a vital part of our life that is not just beautiful but also essential to our wellbeing.
Whenever you take a walk to the beach or simply to another lecture, try to look out for the life around you, and maybe take a picture. Photos are a wonderful way to share the beauty of the world around us, and they can help us notice some details that we may miss while running around our lives.