Tweets,
One of the Snowy Owls that Chris Hill, Yvonne Bombardier and I saw on
Jetty Island on the 17th spit up a pellet while we were there and later
after the bird moved down the beach we were able to recover the pellet.
The contents included bones that we thought might be Black-bellied Plover
or perhaps some larger bird. The bird also pooped while we were there, so
at least this bird is feeding.

In the discussion about when these owls
are active Chris had suggested watching at night with a nightvision scope,
so I attempted to do that last Saturday night. A friend loaned me a scope
but I was unable to get out to the island until about 8:30pm, so I was
unable to observe what happened at dusk and early evening. I hiked around
the north end of the island and was unable to find any owls there, only
one Great Blue Heron flying and a couple of Killdeer. However, about
midnight I spotted one Snowy sitting on a driftwood perch, looking pretty
much the way they do in the day. When it saw that I was watching it, it
flew out over the mudflats and landed on a piling. After about ten
minutes it flew again and flew low over some ducks out at the water's edge.
The tide was low at the time, quite a ways out, and I couldn't tell what
kind of ducks they were. The owl perched again on another piling for
about another ten minutes and then flew back to the island, over me and
landed on a piling on the east side of the island, across from the Everett
Marina. After a while there, it flew again and I lost sight of it as it
dropped low beneath the crest of the riprap. By the time I climbed up the
riprap in the dark, the bird was gone. Later about 1:30am I spotted a
Snowy on a large stump in the water off the west side of the island.
Although I did not see any hunting attempts, it was my impression that the
birds tended to be more active at night and moved around more. I don't
know for sure if there was one or more birds. Chris had seen two owls on
Jetty earlier in the day and I saw one Sunday afternoon.

Canoeing back to Everett I saw a GBH standing at the water edge and lots of
Western Grebes in the river channel and in the waters of the marina.
Can't say this shed much light on the question of how much or what the
Snowys are eating here, but thought some of you might be interested.

Ed Schulz
Everett, WA
eschulz at eldec.com