One of our faithful volunteers was traveling to the grant work site this morning, and his sharp eye caught a snowy owl perched on an electric pole.
Cornell Lab tells us that snowy owls are very large owls with smoothly rounded heads and no ear tufts. The body is bulky, with dense feathering on the legs that makes the bird look wide at the base when sitting on the ground. Mature males are pure white, juveniles and females often have black barring.
Possibly heavy snow and poor hunting conditions in the northern regions encouraged this bird to flee south. Our warm winter and lack of snow provides easy hunting. Whooo knows? - although this owl does not give us the vocalizations we normally attribute to owls.
In winter, look for Snowy Owls on agricultural fields, utility poles, tops of big hay bales and building roofs. Snowy Owls breed in the treeless arctic tundra.
A saw whet owl and a screech owl were noted at Amboy Marsh this week. The screech is a regular inhabitant but the saw whet is a winter friend, and actually the first documented saw whet at this site. Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary always has cold-weather saw whets.
We are glad to have a variety of owls at Amboy Marsh including the three mentioned above plus the who-cooks-for-you barred owl, and the great-horned owl. Hopefully someday when we have restored more open area, we might entice short eared owls to visit.
Yes, the volunteer continued on after enjoying the snowy owl sighting and worked for 6 hours removing invasive woody brush in the ICECF grant project area!
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