I went to watch the Short-eared Owls and check to see if I could find
a Snowy or two. Result: SEOW 1, SNOW 0. I was in the area (Thomle
Rd., Boe Rd. and finally, Eide Rd.) between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. Didn't
go up on the Eide Rd. dike, where earlier in the day, I see that John
Pushock did see a distant Snowy. All I saw were a half dozen hunters,
couple of parked cars at Eide that may have been birders', a Rough-
legged Hawk, a few Red-tailed Hawks, many harriers (2 male and the
rest either female or immature), an immature Bald Eagle, some Western
Meadowlarks, 4 Trumpeter Swans, distant gaggles of geese a-callin'
and, at the end of the suntime, they flying north, across a pinkening
sky.

But the one Short-eared Owl I watched, was the best. First saw it
flying across the field, up to the northwest from the Eide Rd. parking
area. I followed it with my scope and would occasionally lose it in
the field of view when it suddenly did a "circle drop" to try for a
prey item - usually it popped up again pretty quickly and continued
flying in the same general direction, not changing direction as often
as I often see them do. Witnessed no captures. It sat for fairly
long periods on 2 posts, looking constantly for prey - once it
surprised me and suddenly landed on a tall, thin post about 20 ft.
from me, but I couldn't get it together fast enough to get a photo.
As the owl flew off the various posts, it would do the bark call and
then cruise over a section of field, fairly close to the ground.

No hunters were visible in that field, but earlier, north of Boe Rd.,
I watched 4 of them walk out on the dike and stand around for 10 min.
before I headed away. I scanned the distant dikes in all directions,
both from Boe Rd. and Thomle Rd., but nary a white bump was to be
seen. I later realized I hadn't checked the rooftops of any of the
buildings.

It was clear and sunny with a few dark strips of black cumulo-mimbus
clouds just above the horizon. And it was COLD! I needed to retreat
into my car and turn the heater on a bit during my SEOW watch and had
to sit on my frozen fingers. As I was leaving, I received a call from
a friend in Seattle, telling me that King 5 was going to have a short
bit on Snowy Owls. It turned out to be more of a piece on Nisqually
Wildlife Refuge, with a nice photo of the Snowy that's been there for
a week or so. My friend turned up the volume on her TV so I could
hear the commentary on the phone and she described a bit of what was
going on. It was short and basic and it seemed as though I hadn't
really missed a whole lot by not seeing the piece. I had missed
seeing a Snowy Owl that afternoon - no matter - there will be other
times and places to again catch a look and snap a photo of a near, but
really far-away resting owl (I hope) this winter.

Some photos from the afternoon can be seen at the following flickr site:

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxgAdS6


Barb Deihl

North Matthews Beach - NE Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net

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