For the past few days it has been cold and windy, very windy. My successes at finding owls, particularly Snowy Owls has been poor till late yesterday afternoon. First one needs to understand that Snowy Owls are birds of the open tundra with nary a tree for hundreds and hundreds of miles. These birds hunt by sight. Thus, a Snowy likes to find spots to perch for hunting where they can seen vast open spaces. However, when the wind makes not being blown off those kind of perches difficult, birds adapt.
I finally found Lady again last night. Watch the video embedded below (link for email subscribers). She is having a devil of a time holding on to her perch. She finally gave up and flew to a nearby neighborhood where she disappeared. However, as she dove from view I thought about those words … “she dove from view”. I wondered if this owl was escaping from the open areas and now hunting in a residential area … hunting from roof tops where she was shielded from the wind. The answer was a resounding “yes”. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes along with a few friends we not only repeatedly refound Lady as she worked along the roofs of various homes, but we quickly also found another Snowy Owl. I learned my lesson … if the winds are 20 mph or higher look for Snowies is unusually but protected areas. Lady needed to hunt as the weather has been cold (-23F at sunrise yesterday morning). Birds burn calories much faster keeping warm on these types of days.
Lady Trying to Hunt from an Open Pole (failed)
Lady the Snowy Owl
A Northern Shrike which did NOT like having the owl in the neighborhood. It was screaming up a racket.
