Sunday, December 11, 2005

Whither Snowys?

There has been a veritable flurry of blog posts about snowy owl sightings among the nature bloggers lately. Recently in a comment on this blog and in a post on his own, Dave of Bird TLC has talked about an irruption of snowy owls in southern Alaska (see his post here, and follow-up here). Here's a story from Birdchick blog about a snowy at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport--thanks to Dave for the heads up.) In the recent edition of I and the Bird (at Search and Serendipity) I found this story from Bird Brained stories!: Dreams of boreal species, about, you guessed it, a snowy owl sighting, illustrated with some wonderful photos. Cindy at Woodsong joined in with A Special Place & A Special Owl. Mike of Mike's Birding and Digiscoping Blog has a whole series of snowy posts: Snowy Owls, Even More Snowy Owls, and Snowy Owl Dies from Gunshot Wound. And there may be more--if you know of any, please let me know.

A few days ago I received a report of five snowy owls observed in Casselman--just a couple hundred kilometres to the northeast of Thomasburg, and I've heard of sightings in southwestern Ontario. Ontario sightings seem to be cutting a swath just above Thomasburg, swooping from Ottawa (northeast of me) down to the southwest of the province.

I've never seen a snowy owl. I know they prefer a flat vista, I guess because it reminds them of their breeding grounds on the arctic tundra, and the landscape here rolls a little, but I found a pretty good spot in the fields.

The Perch

I thought maybe if I published a couple of photos here, a snowy might get to hear about it and drop by to try it out.

The View

2 comments:

AYDIN ÖRSTAN said...

Hope they have internet connections.

Anonymous said...

looks like a dandy perch and field for a snowy.. they're hard to spot with alot of snowcover- and when I search for them in the thumb area, every white plastic bag looks like a snowy- so naturally I check them all out ;)

your snowy will share itself with you..when it's time. I learned a long time ago that if I go out in the field with NO expectations, I'm always rewarded- this screen looks scrunched up so I hope this posts ok!