Andrew Tokar, an aircrewman at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, spent his free hours in 2025 documenting birds and island landscapes.

He garnered appreciation online last week after sharing his top owl photos on Facebook; each was taken last year at different state parks across the island.

Armed with a Canon R6 Mark II and a Canon RF 100–500 mm lens, the photographer has spent the past six months roaming Whidbey’s parks, wetlands and fields after upgrading from phone photography.

Originally from New York, Tokar has lived on the island for about two years balancing Navy duties, college coursework in engineering and time in the field, he said. Despite a full schedule, his free afternoons and weekends make it possible to head out with a camera.

Tracking owls requires both time and restraint, he noted. Tokar often spends hours just locating a bird before ever pressing the shutter, he added.

“Usually it takes me, I want to say like an hour or two, to actually find the owls,” Tokar said.

Once found, he uses a tripod to stabilize long exposures as the sun fades.

“So you can even take photos of owls when it’s very dark, as long as you keep your camera stationary and have the shutter open for a long time,” the photographer added.

Tokar’s interest in birds stretches back to childhood, shaped by his time spent watching feeders and counting species with his grandfather. That lifelong curiosity now informs a research-driven approach to wildlife photography, understanding habitats and seasonal patterns before heading out, he said.

“I’ve learned if you want to find something,” Tokar said, “you have to do some research on their habits.”

Much of his focus has been on birds, particularly owls, though his portfolio also includes marmots and mountain goats photographed during trips to the North Cascades.

Some of Tokar’s favorite locations to snap pictures include Joseph Whidbey State Park for its quiet trails and Crockett Lake, where short-eared owls can sometimes be seen hunting low over open fields at dusk. The photographer has documented nearly every owl species known to frequent the island, with one notable exception.

“I think I photographed every species of owl on the island besides the barn owl,” he said.

Over the next year, Tokar’s focus will remain firmly on wildlife, with birds at the center, but he hopes to visit the San Juan Islands in 2026 to photograph foxes.

Photo by Andrew Tokar A short-eared owl at Crokett lake is the king of his stump.

Photos by Andrew Tokar A short-eared owl blends into the long grass at Crockett Lake.