The Christmas Miracle – Snowy Owl

 

The early winter of 2017 had many reports of Snowy Owl sightings around much of Iowa…and this kind of news would get any midwest birder excited.  We simply don’t see them here very much.  In fact, I had never viewed a Snowy before in my life.

Sightings started in November, and by early December they were getting pretty close to home.  However, with every report, I found myself either unable to check out a location, or if I did, I was always a step or two behind.  These owls may or may not stay in an area for very long.  Plus, they happen to be white, and if you have snow, and they’re sitting on the ground, it can be doubly hard to locate one.  Although I can attest we have a plastic bag problem around here…white plastic bags were abundant!

This hit and miss on the owls, went on for over a month…and after countless, trips and treks chasing after leads, and nothing to show for it, I have to admit it was getting a little frustrating.  This owl was like a freaking ghost or something…mythical in a way, because I’d never laid eyes on any of them that other people were supposedly seeing.

Then on the day before Christmas, a friend messaged on Facebook, that he had spotted one around the Walcott, I80 interchange while passing through there.  That’s about 20 minutes away, so it was worth a shot.  Another friend, took off immediately and got up there quickly enough to find the owl in the same general area.  It eventually flew about a mile to the northwest, and he found it again, leading us to it via test messages.  What would we do without friends?!

The featured image on this page is the very first sighting I ever had of a Snowy Owl.  It’s not a great picture by any means (because it was a long ways away), but it represents something special to those of us who were there, which included my wife and one of my kids.

Now interestingly as we were driving up the road to get to this spot, my wife spotted a bird flying through some light snow over a field.  Visibility was poor at the time, but it looked like a really large, crooked-winged, gull…white…and as I would come to conclude, it was a Snowy Owl.  Another Snowy Owl..as the other one was still on the fence post just up the road!

I would come to learn as the winter progressed that these owls, while solitary, are not immune to coming together from time to time.  Certain areas have an appeal to them and it’s not terribly uncommon to find several in the same vicinity.  Case in point…up to three birds were spotted northwest of Davenport Iowa about a month after my first communion with them.

Seeing this owl felt to me like a miracle of sorts.  Your dreams and visions (or the mental obsession) finally connects with the reality before your eyes…it’s a neat feeling.  The fact that it happened on Christmas Eve was not lost on me either.

As the winter continued, we were very fortunate to find more owls in eastern Iowa.  It was, as projected, an invasion year of the birds, when marginal food sources up north, push many young owls farther south for a few months.

From the first of the new year, through early March, sightings were fairly common, and I would learn the habits and tendencies of a few owls, not far from home.  The remaining photographs on this page, are a representation of some of our visits.  Each time was of course, exciting and memorable.

When The Photograph Isn’t The Most Important Thing

Before I close this post out, I want to address something that has been on my mind while writing it.

Someone might think this all-out pursuit of a bird…I say this in regard to how I felt at the time…I really became committed to seeing an owl firsthand…might think that getting a photograph was the most important thing to me.   To say that getting a few shots wasn’t on the checklist would not be truthful, but I didn’t feel driven to get some kind of stunning, NatGeo capture.

For some photographers though, that’s the drive behind their chase…and while I respect that ambition, I’m not impressed with those who lose all their senses in the process.

All of the images you will see of mine, are a result of a lot of patience.  It’s a personal choice of mine to respect the bird more than the desire for the photograph.  None of the birds shown here were bumped from their perching spot or stressed out by my presence…the fact that they allowed me such access makes me happy and grateful.

With birds, I use my vehicle as a blind of sorts, but I don’t get out and pursue a bird on foot, or incessantly chase a bird or animal to get a picture.  Goal or no goal, you respect the critter, their space, and their well-being above all else.

I bring this up only because these owls, seem to bring out the worst behavior in some people (photographers usually).  To get the shot, people have intentionally released pet store mice as bait for such birds, or approached too closely, bumping the birds from their perch or roost, sometimes multiple times, just to try and get a flight shot.  Neither of these is really acceptable in my opinion.

Baiting is a practice that has fallen out of favor with many wildlife photographers because it can habituate a bird to people too much.  Wary birds tend to live longer around humans…let’s put it that way.  In terms of chasing a bird…we can’t forget that these creatures have a hard enough challenge surviving day to day in the winter.  Of course they can fly when they want to, but to keep harassing them to do so, just burns more calories, a valuable commodity in winter, and adds unneeded stress on the bird as well.

I only bring this up because I witnessed it firsthand.  I had found a Snowy, perched on a fence post, literally in the middle of a section of farmland.  The only way to see it was through binoculars, as it had to be 500′ or more away from the road.

As I drove the backroads, I ran into another photographer, who was from out of town.  He was friendly and cordial, as most are, and asked if I had found any owls that morning.  Naively I had mentioned that yes, there was one just up the road but it was in the middle of the field.  Not really photographable but if you want to see one, it’s there.

We parted ways after that, but on my return pass through the area, I saw footprints along the fence line, leading out to where the owl was.  The owl was gone.

I would run into him again a bit later on and he proceeded to tell me, he went out, got the bird to fly twice, and got a few photographs.  He was pleased and thankful.  I was stunned.  It had not dawned on me that anyone in a respectful frame of mind would even do that kind of thing.  I still believe it was an innocent, ignorant, uninformed thing to do…but I could also see how the drive for the photograph, could lead to such things.  Unfortunately, the fellow would post his images online, and as should be expected, they were not of high quality…that is unless you like looking at the birds tail end, which is what you usually get when you chase them.

My final word on this is simple.  If you can’t respect the animal or bird, more than you desire the shot…go do something else better suited to your mindset.  Get a portrait studio, or shoot inanimate objects…but leave the wildlife alone.  With the latter, you’ll get far better results with patience, perseverance, and planning.

An Arctic Bird In Iowa

There is a sad reality, to having a bird from the arctic tundra, spending time in the industrialized midwest.  The arctic after all is fairly flat, virtually treeless, and devoid of fences, power lines, vehicle traffic, and pretty much everything we find as commonplace in Iowa.

These owls hunt and fly as their evolution and native habitat will dictate…often flying low to the ground in pursuit of mice, voles, or other small critters.  It’s unfortunate too, that some of the very best habitat you’ll find in agricultural states, is the roadside ditches.  The vegetation here is thicker, denser, which makes it prime habitat for rodents.  So the owls, as well as other raptors, will often hunt by the roadsides.

This unfortunately leads to a lot of collisions with vehicles.  With the owls in particular, the data from the winter of 2017/2018 indicated over 30 owls were killed or injured in various ways.  Most were likely vehicle strikes, but some most surely were due to impacts with fences or similar obstacles.  One of the owls you see here ended up with a broken and infected wing after colliding with something.  It had to be euthanized due to the infection.  It was found in early March…very close to the time when it would start heading back north to its native region by the Hudson Bay.  It had almost made it through the most difficult year of its life.

My sincere thanks to friends, Dave Conrads and Paul Brooks for their kindness…which lead to my first Snowy Owl encounter.