Superbowl
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For owls that are superb.
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We are coming to an end of the second year of c/superbowl, and I think we've had a really good year together. We've covered a ton of great topics, and we've got a pretty good group of people commenting on a daily basis. A lot of people have been hanging around since last year, and we're still doing well overall in the list of active communities and we've grown by about 50% since last year. There's a lot of people recommending us whenever I see a "what communities are must subscribe?" list.
We have a lot of fun, we learn a lot, and I hope we feel a better connection to the world around us.
I'll post some top whatever lists below in the comments to look at some of the things we've done and some of the things you may have missed.
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Talons and eyes of Snowy Owl mean all business!! Snowy owls, with their sharp talons and keen eyesight, are known for their ability to hunt efficiently and decisively.
Massachusetts December 2024
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From Lisa M Jones
Northern Hawk Owl Alberta, Canada I love the juxtaposition of the fierce intensity of the Northern Hawk Ow's gaze against the soft, pastel, candy-coloured sky. also love when the stars align and gift me the opportunity to capture the two together.
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From Juneau Empire
This little owl was quite frequently detected in the trees at the edge of the wetlands this fall. And one appeared on the doorstep of a friend’s house, just sitting in the snow, which she photographed. I took that as a sign that it was time to write about them.
Pygmy owls (genus Glaucidium, with about 29 species) live all around the world in a variety of habitats. Some of them are nocturnal, like many other owls, and have asymmetrical ear openings on either side of the head, the better to hear their prey. But others are day-active, with symmetrical ear openings. Most of them live in forested and other wooded habitats, but some occupy more open areas.
Our species is known as the northern pygmy owl (G. gnoma) and it is one of the diurnal species. This species is a collection of subspecies that have some differing features; the southern subspecies are sometimes categorized as a separate species, the mountain pygmy owl. As in other pygmy owls, on the back of its head there are two dark feathery ovals, often circled by a few white feathers, that resemble eyes; these false eyespots are thought to deter predators (chiefly other birds) or small birds that might mob the owl.
The northern pygmy owl ranges from the Yukon into Central America, occupying various forested habitats, primarily in mountainous areas. All pygmy owls are cavity-nesters, commonly using old woodpecker holes or occasionally trees with heart rot and — in open regions — sometimes holes in sand banks or termite mounds. Males are thought to carve out their territories and then females begin to select nest sites. Females are larger than males and usually produce clutches of five or six eggs. Cavity nests may be depredated by weasels, probably squirrels, and other birds.
During the nesting season, females stay in the nest for about seven weeks, doing all the incubation and brooding of young chicks. She emerges only to defecate or spit up pellets of undigested prey parts or receive food from the male, who does all the hunting during that time. Prey received from the male is torn up by the female and fed to the little chicks. As the chicks grow, she begins to hunt too.
Chicks stay in the nest almost four weeks, covered at first by fluffy white down that is replaced by darker downy plumage and then by juvenile plumage. Hatching is often spread over two or three days, so some chicks are a bit larger than their siblings. How and if the nest is kept clean seems to vary. Fledgling juveniles stay together for a few weeks and are fed by both parents, but the relative roles of dad and mom are reported to vary among families. Fledglings begin to hunt for themselves when they have been out of the nest for a week or two.
The diet consists chiefly of small vertebrates in northern populations, but also includes lots of large insects such as moths. Pygmy owls are sit-and-wait predators, lurking in the trees and perhaps moving from perch to perch until they spot a likely victim. Prey is captured chiefly on the ground or in the understory. Some very active hunters have captured over a dozen small birds and mammals in a day. In some areas, small snakes and lizards are also captured.
As with most cavity-nesters, nesting success is usually good: better than 80% of nests produce chicks, sometimes over 90%. These birds seem to be short-lived, living only a few years, but the data are very skimpy; a few adults are known to have lived over four years.
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From Eric D Olick
There was some crazy orange sodium-like light around this red screech owl last night, who has been putting on quite a show after dark.
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This is Chuckles, our Northern Whitefaced Scops Owl. He arrived at the sanctuary 2 years ago, when he was just 12 weeks old. Now, he is one of the most popular mainstays of all our owls (and still does the quiet chuckle hoot of which he was named after!)
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From Wild Care Oklahoma
Great horned owl patient 24-8120 arrived last month from northwest Oklahoma. Pictured wearing a body wrap, this patient arrived with a mildly displaced humerus fracture, underweight, and dehydrated. The body wrap helps hold the wing in place giving it time to heal correctly. The raggedy pieces of tape on the wrap are actually distractions intentionally placed on the wrap. Rather than the owl tugging the wrap itself, it can tug on those tabs without disturbing the wrap itself. Pretty ingenious!
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From Jacob Shie
Just wow, what an amazing bird, so honored to photograph this majestic Snowy Owl. Indian Lake, 11-28-24
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From Coeli Ingold
I took this picture yesterday, under extreme wind gusts and completely dark grey skies with a wind chill of -1, and at the very end of the 180-600's range. It's my first of season Snowy.
No one let me in to any warm places to take it, lol.
Snowy Owl
Lake County...OH...12-12-2024
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From Matt Sorum
New Northern Saw-Whet Owl for me this year. Another special find yesterday.
I was navigating through some tightly grown trees, so my attention wasn't really on expecting to see an Owl. When I got to the opening, I turned my head left, and this little one was staring right at me, about 3 feet from my eyeballs.
I think my eyes were just as big, as it was so unexpected. :)
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From Deby Dixon
I've had the rare opportunity to spend some time with a Pygmy owl lately, inhospitable habitat. A few days ago, right after I arrived, a small bird flew through the air and landed in a tree near me on the road. These owls are so tiny, one has to look hard through the branches to find them at times. spotted the owl and was able to take a few shots before it took off, heading right towards me! did not know that the pygmy had a vole in its clutches. The owl flew low over the road and could feel the air pressure of the wings as it flew within 18" of my leg. That was the beginning of my new lessons of learning some of the behaviors of these owls. This owl has a routine and a healthy appetite. It caught 5 voles during the course of the day and stashed them in a tree cavity.
I love this shot because it is so dramatic with the owl coming head on. Technically, it isn't perfect but I've seen very few great flight shots with the Pygmy owl.
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I’ve been getting trolled most the year by a GHO- they’d set up above my window and hoot until I went outside to try and get a picture.
Eventually set up a webcam… jerk used it for a perch (and flew in and off from behind… all it saw were its talons…)
Whelp. It’s grainy. But I finally got ‘em.
(Very) Early Christmas Day. There was at least four others calling out, maybe 5-6, some were distant, so they were too bothered to hide from me.
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From Hickory Record
Annabell Whelan woke up Tuesday and frantically checked on her holiday overnight guest — Nowl the snowy owl, who she rescued from the grille of a car the prior day.
Whelan was out with her boyfriend's family Monday in Duluth, Minnesota, when she saw the owl "just hanging out there, literally" after car and bird collided, she told The Associated Press.
The car's owner already called for help, but the animal rescue organization that the bird needed was closed — so Whelan stepped in, not for the first time that day.
Earlier Monday, Whelan found an injured great gray owl on the ground further north in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Experts at Wildwoods, a Duluth-based wildlife rehabilitation center, told her how to safely catch the bird.
"I definitely thought that I had had my fix of owls with the first one," said Whelan, 22, a Lake Superior Zoo guest experience manager who graduated earlier this year with a biology and environmental science degree.
"I could tell he was having a hard time with one of his eyes," she said. "I kind of took my time and just sat there with him and talked quietly and was just kind of trying to coax him to trust me a little bit."
Whelan scooped up the owl in a blanket, transferred him to a dog crate in the car and dropped the great gray owl off at Wildwoods. He was sent along with another animal to the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center in St. Paul.
The snowy owl she found hours later was in a much scarier situation, she said.
"It was obviously a lot more trauma," she said.
Since Wildwoods already closed for the night, Whelan wrapped Nowl in a blanket and crated her overnight in a dark, quiet room in her home — keeping her and her cousin's curious cats and dog at bay. She named her Nowl, a play on noel.
"I tried to prepare myself in case I woke up in the morning and she didn't make it through the night," Whelan said. She said she cried happy tears when she saw Nowl moving and awake, and brought her to Wildwoods that morning.
Nowl "is quite beaten up," Wildwoods posted Tuesday on Facebook after examining the bird. "We applied a wing wrap, gave her meds, and coordinated with The Raptor Center to get her down to them."
The rescue organization said people should slow down, stay alert and call for help when they see an injured animal. The animals are terrified of people and should be quickly moved to a quiet, safe space where they can be left alone until professionals can step in, the rescue said.
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No, I'm not flirting with you!! But thank you for that amazing expression of yours.. I don't think I've seen it before. One big plus for the eyes, but ear tufts are just bonus 😍🤣 I think I'm in LOVE...AGAIN!!! New England December 2024
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From Mike Lentz
I'm not sure what I like better... the lichen coated perch or the difficult to find Boreal Owl. Thoughts?
The Nemadji State Forest is a hidden gem for so many species and it's not the easiest to navigate, but it's well worth exploring... if that's your thing. :)
I actually was told about this location many years ago by a "birder" who said I need to go to the "Nickerson Bog" for Warblers. Well that turned out to be golden!
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A welcome sign of winter are snowy owls appearing along rocky shorelines and in empty fields throughout Wisconsin.
A varying number of these charismatic raptors — with their bright, white plumage, feathered feet and large, yellow eyes — migrate south from their nesting grounds north of the Arctic Circle every year.
“They come all the way from these Arctic islands at the far northern end of Canada, almost to the North Pole,” said Ryan Brady, a conservation biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “They’re not that common and they move unpredictably. There’s no guarantee of seeing one. So if you do, you’re not going to take it for granted.”
Brady joined WPR’s “The Larry Meiller Show” to talk about the breeding and predation habits of snowy owls, as well as the threats they face during their long journey and time here in Wisconsin.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Larry Meiller: Since at least 2013, you’ve been keeping track of snowy owl sightings in Wisconsin. Why did you start doing this?
Ryan Brady: For two reasons. One was to try to better understand a species that we really don’t know that much about, despite all the allure that they come with.
But more importantly, I was getting a lot of questions. A lot of folks had very high interest in the species. It’s an extremely popular, charismatic bird that the public loves. And being one of the state’s ornithologists, I needed to know what was going on.
So I started keeping track, and the two things have come together quite nicely to produce a dataset that has given us the pattern of snowy owl movements into the state over the last decade or so.
LM: What does your database tell us about the migration of snowy owls?
RB: This time last year, we had only two snowy owls reported in the whole state. As of Dec. 19, we’ve had upwards of 60 owls, which is a lot more than each of the past two years, but a lot less than the last two irruptions of 2021 and 2017.
Certainly there are more owls on the landscape than get reported and counted. With that said, a big white bird like that gets people excited. A lot of photos of them show up on Facebook, Instagram or other social media. So I think the number of owls that go undetected gets lower every year.
LM: I’ve heard that it’s often a low number of lemmings in the Arctic that forces the birds down south. But new research suggests the opposite is probably true.
RB: My money says it could be a little bit of both. In most cases, when we see a lot of snowy owls here in Wisconsin, it’s because the lemming numbers were very high the previous summer in the Arctic.
When there are more lemmings in the Arctic, the snowy owls make lots of babies. A pair might produce five, six, seven or more young owls. When those young owls leave the nest, they disperse across the landscape and move south.
In years when the lemming numbers are low, the owls may not have very good breeding success. Then there’s not a lot to feed the babies, so maybe only one per nest survives.
LM: And of course, they’re not dining on lemmings here.
RB: They have a really varied diet. They will eat small mice, voles and shrews, but they’ll eat a lot of other things. Rabbits are a favorite. So are weasels and muskrats.
Surprisingly to a lot of folks, they eat a lot of waterfowl, things like gulls and ducks and even geese. … They’re very opportunistic, and that allows them to occupy a number of different habitats. You might see them in wild, open landscapes that resemble the tundra. But then you see them a lot in harbors and along the lakeshores.
One of the more popular places for them to hunt is in roadside ditches, which is unfortunate because one of the leading causes of snowy owl mortality here in the winter is collisions with vehicles. When they get here, they might be a little bit emaciated.
Remember, they’ve just flown almost 2,000 miles. Maybe it’s a young bird that doesn’t yet have good hunting skills and wasn’t able to put on the appropriate fat needed to make the journey. Many healthy ones are also struck by vehicles or die in collisions with other infrastructure.
LM: Snowy owls are different from other owls. For example, they’re more likely to be hunting in the daytime.
RB: That’s probably the single factor that makes them as appealing as they are, the fact that they can be diurnal. In general, people love owls. There’s this mysterious quality to them, but you don’t often get to see them. So when you see an owl during the day, it’s really exciting.
Snowy owls are mostly going to be in the more open areas. A barred owl is more of a forest species, so there won’t be much direct competition between the species. Snowy owls will maybe occupy the same fields as short-eared owls. If there’s enough rodents around, they might not get too territorial.
In semi-developed areas, there can be great horned owls around. Between a snowy owl and a great horned owl, that would be a good battle to witness. Unfortunately, I never have. But I imagine there’s some tussles that take place in the darkness of night. Great horned owls are very fierce, so they can probably hold their own and kick a visitor out of their territory. But a snowy owl may have an edge by being on average a pound heavier than a great horned owl.
LM: Tell us about Project Snowstorm.
RB: Project Snowstorm is a collaboration of U.S. researchers and conservationists looking to learn more about the species. … They’re putting devices on the birds, seeing how they move around the states, including their behavior near airports.
But they’re also getting data from the Arctic breeding grounds in a way we’ve never had before. One of the reasons this species is so poorly understood is because they’re breeding way north, above the Arctic Circle, where there are very few people.
LM: Have you personally observed snowy owls in our state?
RB: I have been fortunate to see probably hundreds. I live in the Ashland area on the south shore of Lake Superior. That’s one of the best places in the state to find snowy owls, especially during the irruptive years.
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From Ken Becka
Beautiful barred owl in our backyard last week in Cuyahoga county (Ohio). 8:00 am on a foggy morning. Stayed 20 minutes. He was checking out our little fish pond.
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From Laura Zamfirescu
We saw few Great Horned Owls also in the refuge last week. They are known to be active at dawn, dusk, and night, times of the day not ideal for photography. But who cares, I try to get a few pictures anyway. This one came out pretty decent considering it was taken after Sunset and handheld.
New Mexico - at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
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Photos by David Lei and Jacqueline Emery
The last time Emery and Lei saw Flaco together, they were on a friend’s rooftop on West 86th Street. With a pigeon clamped firmly in his talons, Flaco flew from a nearby water tower to a spot directly above Emery and Lei. There he lingered, closer than he’d ever been, hooting. He peered down at them between bursts of song.
“It was magical,” Emery said. “I’ll never forget that.”
She paused, too choked up to continue, then added, “He looked so peaceful and happy. We shared that moment with each other.”
Lei said, “It was almost like he was saying hello. And goodbye.”
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Mods: Sorry if this doesnt fit the sub, but I think people commonly mistake Tawny's for Owls, and they're the closest animals to owls Im likely to see. The image is Original Content (taken by me). Let me know and i'll post to birding or just pics.
I was out recently noticed two Tawnys in a tree, i was surpirsed as the last i saw any was around a year ago and it was just one where i'd always seen two together.
These two looked very tired. The one on the left was more awake and i felt like i was being glared at. 'Dude, I'm watching you, I don't like you and if you come closer, we might have to move, and we really, really don't want to do that'.
So i came close enough to get this shot and left them in peace but am keeping an eye out for them the next time in the area.
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From Grove Smith
I can now check the Snowy Owl off my list of birds for my lifetime photo collection. Here's a wide and tight crop; it's just one of over 2,500 photos I took yesterday. Snoy A1, 600 f/4
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