Dennis, whose comments on owls are no snow job, states:

>They're an intense golden-yellow

I photographed one of the two at Bayocean Spit (Tillamook) a week ago
Thursday and they are indeed intense and gold.

>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.

I noticed this two, and the slides show it, except for one time when
it stared intensely straight up. I expected one of the local baldies
or harriers to be the source of the spook-out, but instead it was a
brown pelican soaring about 100 ft overhead, towards the ocean.

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://www.xxxpdx.com/~dhogaza