I wrote this feature article for the Hazleton, Pa., nwspaper earlier this decade. This bird was an incredible sight as it prerched atop a building just three or so miles — and uphill — from here.
By ALAN GREGORY
The Standard-Speaker
USA - Jason Kipp was among the very first people to see the great white visitor from the far north. But by the end of the workday, he wasn’t alone. Kipp first saw the snowy owl when he showed up for work at the Athena Building in Hazle Township Tuesday morning.
By mid-afternoon, the nearly all-white owl with a wingspan of about 55 inches, still sat - contently in human terms - atop a decorative chimney on a corner of the building just off Airport Road near Laurel Mall.
“That is amazing,” Kipp, who works for an insurance company, said as he watched the bird as it, in turn, watched a small single-engine aircraft fly overhead.
“Athena is the goddess of wisdom and the symbol is an owl,” said Dr. Louisa Voutsinas, whose medical offices are inside the same building.
Voutsinas had already seen the bird - more than a few times, probably - by the time she took another look just after 2 p.m.
“Oh yeah,” another person said as he hoisted binoculars to get a close-up look.
“It’s beautiful . . . I think it’s beautiful,” yet another viewer said.
The snowy owl’s presence was also noted by a flock of American crows, which harassed the perched owl on several occasions during the day.
The appearance of a snowy owl - anywhere - can become the stuff of bird-watching legend.
When a snowy showed up near Brodheadsville in Monroe County during the winter of 2003-2004, word of the bird’s presence spread fast - fed by birding hotlines and e-mail lists.
And by the time spring rolled around, hundreds of birders from across the state and region had driven to Brodheadsville to get a glimpse of the bird - through cameras, spotting scopes and binoculars.
A photograph of that bird eventually was published in “Pennsylvania Birds,” the official birding journal of the state.
“Looks like a first-year bird or possibly an adult female,” said Dr. Keith Bildstein, a birds of prey scientist at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary near Kempton, Berks County.
“But not an adult male,” he said after viewing a photograph of the Hazleton-area visitor.
Fully-grown adult male snowy owls have all-white plumage. The bird that showed up in Hazle Tuesday has dark or black spots, or barring, across its back, belly and chest.
“In most years, young birds are more likely to irrupt (south from the Arctic) than are older birds,” Bildstein said.
In most winters, only a handful of snowy owls show up in Pennsylvania.
The large day-hunting owl has a rounded head without the “ear” feathers of more familiar owls like the great horned.
Its yellow eyes are distinctive and immature birds - such as the one that’s visiting the Hazleton area - are “boldly barred with black,” notes a Web page of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.
The snowy owl, unlike most other owls, is diurnal or active during the day.
And “snowies” are found only in the Arctic region during the summer, or breeding season.
During that time, they’re most commonly seen sitting very still on the tundra.
But in late fall and early winter, when food supplies sometimes fall off, some snowy owls - usually the young - head south in search of food.
While a snowy owl that shows up in Pennsylvania or elsewhere in the United States presents a great birding opportunity, its presence here is indicative of a hungry animal, Bildstein said.
“They’re great birding opportunities, of course,” he noted.
In some years, large numbers move south in search of food - their principal northern prey, the lemming, having fallen off in abundance.
Ornithologists call that southerly movement an “irruption.”
When a snowy owl arrives in Pennsylvania, it’s “using our habitat as a last-ditch attempt to survive the winter . . . The birds that we wind up seeing (here) are really grasping at habitat straws,” Bildstein said.
“This is not where they want to be. And I would want to caution bird-watchers not to move the bird around. We really need to be careful. They’re not in great shape when they get here.”
Autumn Pfeiffer of Hobbie tried to view the visiting owl just before dusk Tuesday, but without luck. It had apparently moved to a more open-field area, perhaps near the airport, where mice might be more plentiful.
Large numbers of snowy owls moving south into the Northeast is the exception. But almost every year, a few of the Arctic owls seem to show up in Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
The snowy owl is considered the heaviest of all North American owls, and adults must capture and eat the equivalent of 7 to 12 mice per day, or as many as 350 a month, to meet their food requirement.
In winter months, snowy owls spend much of their time conserving energy by perching on fenceposts, rooftops, utility poles or other sites that offer unrestricted views.
“In winter, the snowy owl visits many parts of southern Canada, providing most Canadians with the opportunity to observe one of the most striking and distinctive of the world’s 146 species of owls,” notes a Canadian Wildlife Service Web site.
On the Net:
Canadian Wildlife Service:
http://www.ffdp.ca/hww2.asp?cid=7&id=76
Cornell University Lab of Ornithology:
http://birds.cornell.edu/crows/snowy.htm
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