An adult male Snowy Owl, wide awake at the day’s first light in Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness Area, New York. This photo was selected out of more than 5,000 entries to go on display in “Wilderness Forever: 50 Years of Protecting America’s Wild Places,” a new photo exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which will run through summer 2015.
Wilderness Forever: Snowy Owl
© Scott Joshua Dere / NBP Courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography