New TBL Podcast Episode: Snowy Owl Invasion!

Episode 35 of my podcast This Birding Life is now available (free as always) over at Podcast Central on the Bird Watcher's Digest website as well as in the iTunes Podcasts channel.

This episode is kind of an audio travelogue, tracking my birding posse as we mount up and drive north in Ohio looking for a snowy owl, with a short audio side trip to talk to owl expert Denver Holt from the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

Denver Holt of the owl Research Institute with a nestling snowy owl.

Readers of Bill of the Birds already know how our snowy owl adventure turned out from two posts from last month, which can be found here and here.

I wish it didn't take me so long to create each episode of This Birding Life but I get kind of carried away with the story/topic and I really want them to be engaging for anyone on the listening end, thus the long gestation period.

I hope you got to see (or will get to see) a snowy owl this winter. And I hope you'll enjoy this episode of my podcast.

Snowy Owl Adventure Part 2: No Gull, No Worries!

Our birding gang at the concrete bridge in Ashtabula.

After a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts to take on/drain off various liquids, we headed east along Lake Erie, all the way to Ashtabula (which, by the way is pronounced Ash-tah-BYEW-lah, not Ash-TAB-you-lah). Our target bird was the black-tailed gull, a vagrant from Asia that had been hanging out around the town's harbor since November. Scores of birders from all over have been there to see it. I'm not really a chaser, but the allure of a truly rare vagrant just an hour away from a virtually guaranteed snowy owl was too much to resist.

The industrial harbor/train yard at Ashtabula, OH where the black-tailed gull has been seen.

We followed the excellent directions on Jen Brumfield's website to the various Ashtabula haunts of the black-tailed gull and we found gulls—about 50,000 of them! At the Lakeshore Park overlook we encountered three fellow birders also seeking the black-tailed gull. No one had seen it yet on this sunny, cold, calm Sunday afternoon, but we had high hopes. We spent the next few hours scanning the gull flocks, hoping to see a single bird with the key combination of field marks that would make it the black-tailed gull. It was exactly like searching for a needle in a haystack of needles.

Jen's recommendation was to bop from spot to spot hoping to see the gull. So we drove back and forth, spending time at the overlook and the cement bridge. Multiple times we'd see a gull with a black terminal tail band, or one with a seemingly dark back. No dice on the ice. We never did see it.

So we did what any relatively normal (and not completely obsessed) bird watchers would do, we went looking for more snowy owls. Two of the guys at the overlook had spotted one from the concrete bridge, sitting on a giant coal pile, earlier in the day. We headed back that way. While Daniel and I braved the increasingly breezy afternoon chill, the gals sat in the comfort of the Zickmobile, heater on. We looked for the gull in the marina, facing away from the lake, while the gals gazed lazily out toward the coal and rock piles and the lake beyond. I thought they were probably napping.

I was wrong.

"We need the scope over here, guys! NOW! Hurry! And you're going to want to see this!" they exclaimed, as they climbed out of the toasty car and pulled their Elmer Fudd hats on.

"What do you have?" I asked.
"Come see for yourself!" they blurted.

This was when they started dancing what could only be described as a jig that was equal parts joyous and taunting.

They had found our second snowy owl of the day. On top of one of the hundred-foot-tall piles of gravel. Plain as day.

I was happy to see the owl and dutifully put the spotting scope on it. But I felt a bit silly that I hadn't seen it when I got out of the car. Oh well.
Here is the distant look we got through the scope. The owl was probably about 1/3 of a mile away. And here's a cropped view, below.

A zoomed up view of snowy owl #2.

We high-fived each other to celebrate our Two Snowy Owl Day. And I made a pitch that we go back to the overlook to scan for the gull some more. We did, though by this time we were all getting tired, eye-weary, and the cold was starting to invade our bones. As the sun dropped lower and the light turned lemon, then peachy, I spotted a distant snowy owl on another gravel pile. This one looked whiter and cleaner than the one we'd seen 20 minutes before from the bridge. But was it just a trick of the light? Was this the same owl from the bridge, just a different view?

#3!

I took some documentary photos and we decided to compare these with the view of the second owl over by the bridge. So back we went. We found the two Maryland birders there, confirmed that none of us had seen the gull, and told them about the other snowy owl. They immediately got excited and went to see it—stoked at having their OWN two-snowy-owl day (which was old news to us veterans at this point). I asked them to call me when they found it, and showed them my photo of where it was. Twenty minutes later they called to confirm that their owl (owl #3) was sitting on top of the gravel pile where we'd left it. Owl #2 was on the ground about 300 yards in front of us at this point, so we KNEW these were two different birds, and we had also just confirmed our first-ever THREE-SNOWY-OWL day!

Snowy owl #3 at Lakeshore Park overlook in Ashtabula, OH.

Now that's an awesome day of birding! Gull schmull! I got to see my spark bird, one of the least-encountered owl species in North America, right in my home state, not once, not twice, but THREE times in a single day!

Happy owl watchers at the end of an epic day.

Snowy Owling Adventure

My most recent snowy owl was in the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore in September 2010. Yes, it was inside a zoo in Asia! Not really thrilling to see—actually kind of depressing. And even though our winter this year in Ohio has been fairly mild (recent days excepted), it was actually getting kind of depressing, too.

Sunday, January 22 promised to offer a break in the harsh, icy winter weather we'd been enjoying in Ohio, so I decided to mount an expedition northward looking for special birds. This has become an annual ritual—as if giving myself over to the colder, more wintry northern latitudes could help break the spell of my winter lassitude. Last year it was Bohemian waxwings, recently named my Bird of the Year in a vote that made the recent political primaries look like nap time in Romper Room.

Before the warmer air mass moved in and melted all the ice, things were mighty cold and drab around the farm.

This year I would try to find the great white invader of the North: the snowy owl. I have a special connection to this species. The snowy owl was my spark bird way back in November of 1968, when one flew into our front yard in Pella, Iowa. That's the first bird I remember seeing and identifying myself. It sparked my interest in birds and bird watching and I've watched birds ever since.

Flashing back to the now... The winter of 2011-2012 has been a well-documented invasion year for snowy owls. And there is some debate about what causes this phenomenon. Is it a super abundance of food (lemmings, primarily) last summer that resulted in lots more baby snowies surviving to fledging? Is it a crash in the lemming population that forces starving snowies of all ages south in search of sustenance? Or does it just happen randomly every other decade or so? According to the experts, we don't really know.

My last Ohio snowy owl was in November 2001.

No matter the reason for the invasion, I was determined to try to see at least one snowy owl this winter. I missed the big influx of great gray owls a few years ago, which was a bummer. Wanting very much to ensure success, I called a hotshot birder in northern Ohio, Jen Brumfield. As I suspected, Jen had the hook-up. We made plans and I began spreading the word that I was heading north.

Funny thing about big birding excursions... they sound a lot more appealing when you first hear about them than they actually are when it's time to get your rump in gear and go. I asked 14 of my fellow birders—some of whom are actual relatives of mine—and all of whom had expressed enthusiasm for this mission—to come along. I envisioned a giant caravan of cars, all packed sensibly with bird watchers who were giddy at the prospects of the day. In the end only two friends joined us (three if you count Julie, who really had no choice). And these two friends, Kelly and Daniel, are brand new bird watchers. I complimented them on their courage. It would, after all, be at least eight hours in the car, with low temperatures—probably as cold as the dangly parts of a brass monkey, and we might completely strike out! They were undaunted.

We left home at 7:30, met our pals at 8, gassed up, and hit the road headed north. Our destination was to be a field near an airport in Cleveland. Kelly and Daniel asked questions and shared observations about owls and other birds as we drove. About an hour from our destination my cell phone rang and it was son Liam, part of the slugabed stay-at-homers in our family. He had a message to relay: "Jen called and she's at the spot looking at the snowy owl right now!"

I stomped on the accelerator.

We got there in record time, found Jen, and then cast our eyes upon the owl, about 200 yards distant. Oh glory be! Such a beauty! She turned, gazing one way then another.


We picked out details: she had tiny dark ear tufts, something we'd never noticed on other snowy owls. The back of her head showed markings that looked vaguely like a raptor face. Her eyes shone bright yellow in the late morning sun. Wow!


Jen told us the interesting story of how it had been found and what its habits seemed to be. Soon the owl floated to another spot, this one more out of our easy line of sight. So we talked of other birds. I was particularly interested in trying to see the vagrant black-tailed gull near Ashtabula, as long as we were this far north. Jen again had the latest intel, so, after watching our snowy owl for an additional 20 minutes, we headed for hot coffee, warm bathrooms, some food, and thence to the far northeast corner of Ohio.

to be continued.....

From left: Kelly, Jen, Julie, Daniel, happy snowy owl watchers.

My Spark Bird

Snowy owl, but not THE snowy owl.

On my recent trip to Iowa, I took a detour to spend the night in my hometown of Pella, southeast of Des Moines. While there I visited with my awesome niece Annalea and Thompson family friend Barb Butler. And I also visited the exact site where I saw my spark bird (the bird that "sparked" my interest in birds) as a young man in November of 1969. I told my spark bird story back in January of this year here in Bill of the Birds.

Here's the briefest of re-tellings:

I was out in the front yard of my family's home on Monroe Street on the edge of town. It was Thanksgiving break from school and we were raking leaves in the front yard, under the giant oak trees. I seem to remember a slight dusting of snow on the ground. A flash of movement caught my eye and I looked up into the heavy, spreading branches of one of the old oaks to see a large white bird swooping to a landing. It sat there looking around, oblivious to the gawking humans on the ground 40 feet below.

What happened next is a blur. I remember running to fetch the Chester Reed Field Guide and the ancient WWI binoculars on our kitchen windowsill. We identified the bird as a snowy owl. WOW! I was pretty excited. This was a cool bird.

My family was not into birds at the time, but we'd managed to see a bird that we knew was fairly unusual. For me, however, this was the bird that started me on my lifelong path of watching and seeking out birds. It did not happen all at once, of course. I paged through the Reed Guide and tried to find some of the other birds. For some I had great success (northern cardinal, bobwhite, "purple" grackle) but for others I was to find no joy (painted bunting).

The snowy owl is still a special bird to me and I try to see them whenever winter brings them southward.

The morning after my arrival in Pella, it was already time to leave to head north for a speaking engagement. But first, I wanted to revisit the site of my spark bird encounter.

The Rickety House in Pella Iowa.

My family left Pella, Iowa to move to Marietta, Ohio in 1971. The house in Pella (which we kids called "The Rickety House") passed through a variety of owners, with the associated changes in landscaping, painting, and remodeling. The woodlot to the side of the house was sold of for a building lot. The old tree nursery and scrubby fields where I rambled in the 1960s looking for birds and animals are now a subdivision of perfectly kept houses.

The oak tree that the snowy owl landed in.

But the oak trees are still there. And the tree that hosted my snowy owl is still there, too. I stopped the car out in front and took several photos.

I was standing there and the owl landed up there....

The heavy rain on this morning did nothing to dampen my remembering of the day I met my spark bird.

Bird Watcher's Digest is creating a venue for sharing spark bird stories. We'd love to hear yours, and we'll share the best of them in a blog called, appropriately enough: Spark Bird Stories.

To share your spark bird tale, send an e-mail with the story to mysparkbird@birdwatchersdigest.com.