It was Friday evening at Buena Vista grasslands in the vicinity of elm and
swamp roads. I had already seen four snowy owls around the area. I was now
looking for short eared owls. For the past couple years I had been graced
with the presence of the SEO's at Paradise Valley near Dousman but this
year I was absolutely skunked as far as finding even one there since last
winter. Around 5:25PM, I saw one fluttering over the field, and then up it
flew directly into the face of a snowy owl sitting on a telephone pole and
started to dive-bomb the snowy. A few seconds later a second SEO joined the
first and was doing the same thing to the snowy who at that point other
than flying off to a farther pole and landing, did not appear to offer any
defense, from the two SEO's. When flying the much larger size of the snowy
to the SEO was obvious. SEO's 3 & 4 were now in the area, making the sweet
sound of their bark and screech as they were flutter-flying around. There
was definitely a different sound being made by the SEO's when they were
coming near the snowy on the pole. After about 15 minutes, Snowy moved to a
3rd pole, and it was too dark to see the SEO's any longer. Sure wish that
they'd return to Paradise Valley!
While at BV I was also grateful to have seen a northern shrike, 17 greater
prairie chickens, Kestrel, 2 harriers, an eagle, rough-legged hawks, common
redpolls graveling and 26 mallards in a canal on Taft.
Spencer Stehno, Waukesha
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