Snowy Owl in Kentucky

One bird guaranteed to get all the birders in Kentucky excited about making a road trip is the Snowy Owl! However, it's hard to get your birding ethics straight when it comes to this bird. On the one hand, you want to leave it in peace when it comes this far in the winter, so some birders will say they saw one in such and such county, but not where. Others are eager to share the location so the rest of us have a decent chance to add this rare bird to our life lists.  The first sunshine in over a week made my decision to find this bird an easy one.

 

Thanks to GPS, I drove right up a little country road to this barn. I knew this was the place as I joined 6-7 cars along the side of the road. Can you imagine what the owners must be thinking! I've seen notices on the KY Bird List about this bird since the beginning of March. It moves around a little in the neighborhood, but has been easy to find overall. Since it has been so stationary, John and Eileen Wicker of Raptor Rehab took a look and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Look for Snowy Owls sitting on or near the ground in wide-open areas. They often perch on rises such as the crests of dunes, or on fenceposts, telephone poles, and hay bales. When they fly they usually stay close to the ground. In winter, look for Snowy Owls along shorelines of lakes and the ocean, as well as on agricultural fields and airport lands. I missed seeing the Snowy a the Louisville Airport a few years ago. Snowy Owls breed in the treeless arctic tundra.

Oh, you didn't see it in the first photo? Here's one a little closer. The only part that moved was its head, which it turned around as sounds or movement attracted its attention. Snowy Owls do a lot of sitting. They sit still in the same spot for hours, occasionally swiveling their head or leaning forward and blinking their big, yellow eyes to get a closer look at something. When they hunt, they use extraordinary vision and hearing to draw a bead on their prey—maybe a vole scurrying beneath the snow—and then fly, or even run, over to pounce on it.

Snowy Owls are white birds with varying amounts of black or brown markings on the body and wings. On females this can be quite dense, giving the bird a salt-and-pepper look. Males tend to be paler and become whiter as they age. The eyes are yellow. Someone at Fish and Wildlife said they thought it was a female, but I think it's a male given the subdued barring. He didn't open his eyes much, squinting as the sun broke through the cloud cover.

Raptor Rehab has taken in 2 Snowy Owls in the almost 9 years I have been there. The first, in 2015, died of an anuerism. The second arrived last fall, having been hit by a car. She recovered quite well, and one of our volunteers drove her to Wisconsin about a week ago where she was released. It was great to work with them close at hand, but rehab birds can't be added to my life list!