VA-Birders,
I have heard from a mutual friend at the American Bird Conservancy that
Paul Salaman, an ornithologist at ABC, saw a Snowy Owl at Dulles Airport while
he was taxiing Saturday, 30 November.
Paul described the location as being very close to the west side of the
main check-in terminal, perched on the ground eating something. He said the
bird was beside runway 1C/19C. Runway 1C/19C is the central north-south
runway at Dulles. Having not been out to check on this bird, I am
speculating when I say that this bird is quite possibly viewable from the west
side
of the roof of the parking garage at the west end of the main loop at
Dulles. This is the very garage that boasted views of a Snowy Owl for around
a
month in January-February 2006. If I recall, it was possible to park in
this garage for thirty minutes without paying, but that might have changed
since 2006. I also recall there being a dust-up over people parking in
unauthorized areas, specifically the ground-level parking lot across the
street
from at the various air-shipping offices. In 2006, some people were lucky
enough to have the bird perching on lightposts atop the garage. Do expect to
encounter airport security when pointing telescopes at the runways and
aircraft.
Paul also mentioned a Rough-legged Hawk sitting on signs at the southeast
end of runway 12/30, however that location is not easily seen from
anywhere. The closest public spot might be the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space
Museum,
but there are quite a few obstacles between the two. Surely that bird might
move around a bit.
As many of you are aware, we are in the midst of quite a push of Snowy Owls
on the east coast of North America. The link below is to a map of all the
Snowy Owls entered into eBird since November of this year. Quite a lot of
them between New Jersey and Maine, as well as around the Great Lakes.
There is also no shortage of scattered outliers. The most impressive report
I have read thus far was of 73 of them seen in twelve-kilometer stretch
between Bob's Cove and Cape Race, Newfoundland, with another bunch seen flying
south over the ocean. There are a couple locations in southern Maine where
as many as five are being seen. Closer to home, the Delaware coast has
been a reliable spot to view one or two.
http://tinyurl.com/prtdcy9 ;(eBird map of Snowy Owl reports)
The Dulles Airport report is the fourth I am aware of for Virginia this
fall. One was photographed in Rockingham County (at night!), another sight
report in Rockingham, and a good description from Chesterfield County. So
far none have been reported on Virginia's tricky-to-access immediate coast
(despite at least some effort at Chincoteage that I am aware of). The most
southern of these birds reported to eBird is at Buxton, NC, on the Outer
Banks.
While the immediate coast is surely the most likely spot to find a Snowy,
they truly can show up in any wide-open space in any county in the state.
Don't dismiss all those witches knickers as plastic bags. One of them is
going to turn out to be a Snowy Owl. That said, I got utterly fooled on
Saturday by a very distant Red-tailed sitting atop a pile of hay bales, breast
on.
I have also heard a third-hand report that the sub-arctic breeding
population of Rough-legged Hawks being researched by a biologist at Hawk
Mountain
in Pennsylvania was reported to have had a good nesting season, which may
account for some hawk watches logging birds after a several-year absence.
Maybe we'll have some Rough-leggeds around too.
Cheers,
Todd
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia
Culpeper County
blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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