Let's see those Owls!!

All things winged.

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monklet
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by monklet »

Jake, do you know if that is a state record?
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gbin
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by gbin »

Hey, I actually have pictures to contribute! (I don't ordinarily bring a camera with me afield anymore, but my wife almost always does and we were together on this occasion.)

Yesterday we drove over to Vermont to see if we could find any snowy owls, as we'd heard about the current irruption of the species and thought we knew a good place to look for them not far from where we live in the Adirondacks. We were mainly headed to this area of large fields managed particularly for wildfowl, near Addison, as last fall we'd seen an astonishing number of snow geese there and were impressed with the amount of open space available at the site. Sorry for the poor picture quality; these shots were taken with my sister-in-law's phone camera:

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Sure enough, when we arrived there yesterday we found a few people aiming their binoculars and spotting scopes at a little white dot on the far edge of one of the smaller fields. Our own binoculars revealed said dot to be a snowy owl, all right, hanging around on the ground. (Sorry, it was well out of the effective range of our camera.) Don't know why I expected them to be sitting around in trees, given that they're tundra birds. :? We watched it long enough to see it fly a short distance before settling at another point on the edge of the field (eliciting quite an "Oooo!" from those assembled), then prepared to move on.

Talking with a couple of birders before we left, they told us they'd seen a northern hawk owl just the day before near Waterbury (the home of Ben & Jerry's), only another hour or so away. Apparently it's been hanging out in a particular spot there for around a month now. Off we went to see if we could find it.

And find it we did! Our first glimpse of it was distant (it was perched in the top of a large tree over the road), fleeting (we didn't even have a chance to put binoculars on it before it flew off out of sight) and crowded (birders and birders!), but we explored a bit where we thought it might have flown off to and as luck would have it, about an hour later we found it perched low in a small, bare tree right beside a small, quiet road. We even managed to have it all to ourselves for several minutes before another birder found us. Not that the owl would have cared had we brought a crowd such as was at the main road. It went right on hunting in front of us, ignoring our clicks and flashes and whirs (the birder who joined us was clearly a serious photographer, with all kinds of equipment), and when it finally moved along it even flew so leisurely and so low that I thought for a moment it intended to land on my wife. Seriously, the only other times I've managed to get so close to a bird of prey was in bird shows. Even our point-and-shoot camera managed to make decent use of such an opportunity:

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As a bonus, as we passed the fields near Addison on our way back home we found that all the birders were gone and the snowy owl (or another of its kind) had moved into a tree right by the road. We got a great look at it this time, though it was still too distant and by now also too dark to make photography worthwhile.

So, two new lifer owls for my wife and I, one of those an amazingly close encounter with a downright rarity in the U.S. - and within a couple of hours' drive from our home! I moved here too late in the fall to do any real herping before next spring, but I must say I'm quite enjoying living in the Adirondacks, regardless. :)

Gerry
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pete
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by pete »

Nice shots of the hawk owl!! Hopefully next weekend I'll beheading up to look for it. The farm fields surrounding Malone NY can be really productive for finding snowys. I used to frequent Saranac lake and really enjoyed winter birding in northern NY.
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gbin
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by gbin »

Was it a pair of short-eared owls or northern harriers that my wife and I saw this afternoon in a field southwest of Glens Falls, NY? Unfortunately we got a long but not a good look at them while they were hunting, as the birds were simply too far away and the lighting too unhelpful for us to be sure. (I never realized how similar these two species are in both appearance and behavior!) Guess we'll have to go back soon for another look; we didn't see any of the snowy owls that have have been reported in the area and that we were seeking, anyway... ;)

Gerry
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pete
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by pete »

here are a couple of neighborhood snowys
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34884071@N08/12084309964/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34884071@N08/11716814576/
will go back to using photobucket, don't know why pics arent showing :?
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Andy Avram
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Andy Avram »

Gerry, very cool on those owls. This is the year to see Snowy Owls, even if I haven't been able to find one since the new year (I need it on my 2014 list, ya know, and preferably in my home county). Jealous of the Northern Hawk Owl. In a couple weeks some friends and I are planning a trip to Minnesota to hopefully snag Northern Hawk and Great Gray Owls.
gbin wrote:Was it a pair of short-eared owls or northern harriers that my wife and I saw this afternoon in a field southwest of Glens Falls, NY? Unfortunately we got a long but not a good look at them while they were hunting, as the birds were simply too far away and the lighting too unhelpful for us to be sure. (I never realized how similar these two species are in both appearance and behavior!) Guess we'll have to go back soon for another look; we didn't see any of the snowy owls that have have been reported in the area and that we were seeking, anyway... ;)

Gerry
Both species certainly utilize the same habitats, but Northern Harriers are more apt to soar, coursing back and forth over a field (wings in a strong dihedral, or "V") while Short-eared Owls flap. In fact, from a distance the owls flapping and flight style is reminiscent of giant moths. Lastly, the main centers of activities for the birds differ, with Harriers in the day and owls in the evening night.
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gbin
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by gbin »

Thanks for the advice, Andy! My wife mentioned that northern harrier "V" while we were watching the birds I mentioned, but as long as we watched them (which was quite a while) they never went more than about 4-8 feet off the ground - no soaring, just a lot of low, slow flapping with an occasional quick drop to the ground as they attempted to catch something but came up empty. We suspected the lack of at least a bit of soaring meant they were short-eared owls, but in my best look at one I really thought it looked like a harrier, as it seemed then to clearly show a white rump patch. Could have just been a trick of the afternoon light, though, as subsequently that same bird looked to have a much less prominent rump patch. And we too thought the time of day was more suggestive of short-eared owls than northern harriers, especially as dusk approached and they continued hunting, but then after we got home my wife found on eBird a number of people recently reporting both species, even active in the same field at the same time (generally mid- to late afternoon, the same time we were out there), in the vicinity of our sighting. As I said, we plan to go back soon. Hopefully we'll get a closer look at any subsequent birds.

Yeah, after our time with the northern hawk owl in VT I took a look at recent eBird sightings of that species, and found that they're more likely to be seen in my home state of MN than here in the northeast. (I'd never even heard of them back when I lived in MN despite spending a lot of time in the northern part of the state, but then I wasn't very focused on birds in those days.) It looked like there had been a fair number of sightings not too far west of Duluth and also elsewhere in northern MN, suggesting a number of birds are wintering there. I hope you find them, and the great grays, too!

Gerry
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Andy Avram
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Andy Avram »

gbin wrote:It looked like there had been a fair number of sightings not too far west of Duluth and also elsewhere in northern MN, suggesting a number of birds are wintering there. I hope you find them, and the great grays, too!

Gerry
Yeah, that area NE of Duluth is called Sax-Zim Bog and it is known as the best place in the lower 48 to see wintering boreal birds. They even have a festival in a few weeks to celebrate the birds. The highlights there are the Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls.
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soulsurvivor
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by soulsurvivor »

Here's an old picture from my files. I was walking around a state park in Putnam County, FL and heard some bird alarm calls. Hoping it would lead me to a snake, I followed the calls, but turned out to be some smaller birds squawking at a barred owl.

Image
barred owl by soulsurvivor08, on Flickr
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Crimson King
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Crimson King »

2/16/14
Image

:Mark
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Nick Scobel
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Nick Scobel »

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Snowy Owl by Nick Scobel, on Flickr
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pete
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by pete »

HOLY SH$T!!!!!!!
Stunning shot! :thumb:
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Roki
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Roki »

Image
Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)
Shane_TX
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Shane_TX »

Snowy from Indiana a couple of days ago. Lucky year for a foreigner to see one in IN's March and that it be a curious individual. I can't complain with the bucket-lister, but ebird details do make it a bit anticlimactic. Twenty-five minute drive, three minutes of glassing, get out of the vehicle to prep a tripod and the bird flies to check me out! I can handle that even though my photo skills can't.

It was cold, very cold.

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Image

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Shane
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Noah M
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Noah M »

Image

Image

From 3-5-14 Collier County, FL
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Noah M
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by Noah M »

Image

Burrowing Owl from 3-4-14, Collier County, FL
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JAMAUGHN
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Re: Let's see those Owls!!

Post by JAMAUGHN »

Great Horned Owl Family in Nisqually NWR, WA:

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Nisqually Great Horned Owl Family (Bubo virginianus) by J. Maughn, on Flickr
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