Snowy Owl video: hearing test
You may have seen my recent blog entry with Snowy Owl photos depicting a “day” in the life of the species, and that very cooperative bird was sitting around long enough for me to take some HD video of it as well. It was initially not exactly the most riveting footage in history as it looked over its shoulder and away from the camera continuously (plenty shall remain unseen). However, when I wiped some snow off my jacket while I stood behind the camera it made for an unintentionally awesome hearing test. The owl clearly heard the soft wiping noise I made from a considerable...
Read MoreSnowy Owl photos: a day in the life
This is less of a “day” than a 15 or 20 minute period of me photographing and taking video of a Snowy Owl in the southern part of Jamestown, New York during the Christmas Bird Count for the city that took place on December 15, 2013. However, the photos do depict most of what goes on during the day at our latitude for a Snowy Owl. This bird looked to me like an immature male with a lot of barring over the body though not as dark, thick or bold as some are with a rather large white bib. Let’s let it narrate… “Oh, hello there, human. I’m not very interested...
Read MoreSnowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) by Scott Kruitbosch
Here’s a distant record photo of a Snowy Owl on the fence far from Girts Rd. at the Chautauqua County/Jamestown Airport in the late afternoon snow. We watched it take several shots at prey, possibly capturing one or two items, and flying around this section of the airport watching the vehicles clearing runways. It looked healthy and strong and we hope it sticks around to enjoy good hunting.
Read MoreShooting Snowy Owls at airports
By now you have probably heard about this story but at 2:25AM on Monday, December 9 the New York Daily News posted an article detailing Port Authority ‘wildlife specialists’ that were now shooting and killing Snowy Owls at the New York City metro airports. Snowy Owls are currently in the middle of a massive irruption with sightings all over the Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast regions, a movement we thought could be coming even before it started in earnest. A Port Authority source told the NYDN that three Snowy Owls had already been killed with shotguns at JFK. They were added to...
Read MoreSnowy Owl sightings and statistics
Snowy Owls have exploded across the eastern half of the United States since I blogged about the possible invasion coming this season. There has been an unbelievable push of birds heading to the south and concentrated in the Great Lakes to Northeast and the Atlantic Coast and continuing south by the day. Two years ago we had a similar burst of Snowy Owls pour down into the U.S. but it was more uniformly spread across the upper half of the country. Many Central and Northwest areas had sizable numbers of birds while the Northeast and Atlantic Coast had fewer. Why is there such a difference in...
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