FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Re: Snowy Owl not spotted this morning

[Icepeep@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 2/4/2006 8:20:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
pdcrane@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Instead, sitting on the lamp post where we had first seen the owl was an 
American Kestrel.
You may be interested to know that my friend in Boston, Norman Smith, who has 
banded hundreds of Snowy Owls at Logan Airport, has a beautiful picture of a 
Snowy with a handsome male American Kestrel in its talons that it had nailed 
while the falcon was hovering. They eat anything that flies (or walks or 
crawls). Norman has a great lecture that some of you may have caught about ten 
years 
ago at a Raptor Society of Metropolitan Washington meeting. In it he tells of 
and shows many amazing stories and slides of the Snowy Owl. The only bird at 
Logan that they have not eaten is Bufflehead. Those stay on the water and dive 
when the owl flies near. Everything else has been eaten. Some of you that 
have seen the owl at Dulles fly may have noticed that its wings are long and 
more 
like those of a huge falcon than an owl. They are fast and have entertained 
Norman and on occasion myself by catching an amazing variety of birds on the 
wing. Norman has seen them chase down Snow Buntings, Horned Larks and Lapland 
Longspurs. Northern Harriers have been on the menu as have Short-eared Owls. He 
has a sequence of slides of an owl catching and killing a Great Blue Heron. He 
found the remains of a Clapper Rail in a pellet. He also has pictures of a 
Snowy Owl eating a Snowy Owl. It is not known if the dead bird was the victim 
of 
a collision with a plane, as many have been, or a prey item.  As I said, the 
Bufflehead has seemingly figured it all out. I was watching a Snowy Owl on 
Rainsford Island in Boston Harbor. It was blowing hard and the owl was tucked 
snugly behind dune grass. A Rough-legged Hawk cruised low down the island into 
the north-east wind. As it crossed over the Snowy, the owl rocketed up and 
killed the hawk. The end for the Rough-legged came behind a dune and out of my 
sight. Just as well. This is a great bird we have here and I would like to 
thank 
whoever sent it down.


Bob Abrams
McLean, Virginia