> Today's Tacoma newspaper, _The News Tribune_, features a large
> photo of a female Snowy Owl gripping a freshly defunct rabbit
> and a caption saying that we're having the "biggest incursion
> of the swivelheaded, hazel-eyed creatures here in nearly 25
> years."

Well, I'm all for poetic license, but I sure wouldn't call a Snowy Owls'
eyes "hazel." They're an intense golden-yellow, quite apparent when you've
had one staring at you for hours from a nest only 15' away (I was in a
blind). In the Arctic, and I assume down here too, the upper eyelid seems
always to shade the pupil, that is the direct sunlight seems never to fall
on it.

For those of you are aren't old-timers, the last gigantic incursion was the
winter of 73-74.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
web site: http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html