What you saw nesting in the water tank were barn owls, not snowies. First, snowies just simply don't nest anywhere in wooded areas, especially so far south. Secondly, they don't ever nest in structures. They have an instinctive aversion to going into woodlots or other areas where the skyview is closed. They are virtually never seen inside buildings.

Additionally, snowy owls are so large that they cant possibly provide enough food to feed five offspring, especially in a wooded area where voles are not found. Also, owls donÂt bring nest-building materials to the nest site. They do scrap together some of the local materials, but they donÂt much nest building.

Barn owls, especially the young, are very white. You have described a classic barn owl breeding experience. The nest site was perfect. The number of young was typical. And the local wooded, agricultural environment (with lots of mice, not the bigger voles that snowies prefer) was perfect.

I have seen snowy owls twice. Once on the top of a government office building in downtown Washington, D.C. about twenty years ago and the other time about 30 years ago on the top of a 13 story dormitory building on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.

richard

John_Blakeman: With all due respect to your "take" on the post I made, let me assure you that I observed a pair of Snowy Owls nesting. I have observed owls for many years, and I have not the least problem distinguishing a foot-tall Barn Owl from a two-foot-tall (plus) Snowy Owl, as far as size alone is concerned. The weight, from memory, is about a pound for the Barn Owl, compared to about 4 pounds, for the Snowy Owl. This, regarding size and weight, alone. The appearance is totally different, also--I could NEVER confuse the two, particularly when we observed these owls flying quite low (the water tower was 20'-25' high, as was the open door to the barn loft--and that's as high as the owls flew, from point A to point B). I spent most of my summer vacation from school watching the Snowy Owls, daily, as did my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Of course we had the intelligence to consult a bird book immediately, as none had ever seen such huge, white owls. The identification was simple--pictures of Snowy Owls were carbon copies of the owls flying from the water tower to the open barn loft. I have surmised in later years, that the owls wintered in the area, and found such an abundance of mice and rats in the barn, that a pair stayed over and nested--it's basically that simple, and it definitely occurred. My uncle used to go down to this barn at night, over the years, with a flashlight in one hand, and "Kitty" (a black-and-white farm cat, and a great rat and mouse killer) in the other--and me, when I was young, tagging along. He would shine his light in the rafters, and rats and mice--sometimes twenty to twenty five visible at a time--would take off running the rafters. He would throw Kitty up onto a rafter, and the cat would chase the rats and mice, killing them and dropping them below, as it chased others. It was unbelievable to me, as a child--first, the sheer NUMBERS of vermin present, and, second, the NUMBER the cat would kill before they could all get through the holes they had made in the barn siding. It was not unusual for her to kill 6 or 8 rats/mice, after being thrown into the rafters, and before they could escape. So much for the number of prey animals that the barn contained. To answer some of the other points you bring up in your post: You mention "woods" and "wooded area" at least 3 times Where did you get the idea that any "woods" were present? Please reread my post. The water tower couldn't have been in a more open area. To describe it further: Our farmhouse sat in a large open yard of about two acres; then, there was a fence to an open pasture. In this open pasture, no more than 100 yards from the house, was the water tower. It was 100 yards or less to the barn, where the Snowy Owls caught rats and mice--in the same open field as the water tower. There were no woods for half a mile in any direction, and the pasture was grazed by cattle year-round. This was really the only place a Snowy Owl COULD have nested, to keep from being trampled by cattle. Like a raised hump or mound in the tundra of the Arctic. You mention Snowy Owls prefer open skyview. They certainly had it here--the water tower was UNCOVERED--like a large, OPEN, barrel, used to catch rainwater (possibly over a hundred years old, as the house was built in 1852). You mention Snowy Owls can't provide enough food for 5 chicks. Are you aware that the average number of eggs laid by a Snowy Owl is 3 to 9--depending on the food supply? (Another source says 5 to 8. Do a search for Snowy Owl if you're in doubt).
Are you aware, also, that Snowy Owls are diurnal, and that Barn Owls are the MOST nocturnal of the North American owls?
Also, that Snowy Owl chicks are "downy white", just as I described them? That Snowy Owls have been observed nesting in abandoned Eagles' nests? That they have been observed in Georgia, the Gulf states, and as far south as the Carribean? My post stands totally correct, except for one conclusion that I should not have drawn. I mention that the handful of sticks I observed on the floor of the water tower was "placed there by the owls". Of course, I have no way of knowing whether they placed these sticks there, or whether they remained from some previous nesting. They were definitely no organized nest--but loose sticks spread about in the center of the tower floor. I was expecting to see a "nest" in the tower, and remember the site being conspicuous for its lack of one.
RichardZone7Maryland: Prior to my observation of a pair of Snowy Owls in the woods in Virginia in 1991, I previously saw a lone Snowy Owl in the Winter of 1980, in a tree in the median of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, as I traveled northbound to BWI. There was some snow on the ground, and he sat motionless, looking down, for prey.
Others: To reiterate, has anyone observed Snowy Owls nesting in states other than Alaska?

As a raptor biologist I've never encountered or learned of a snowy owl pair breediing in the lower 48. Unprecedented, I believe. If this was a snowy owl nesting (and your observations appear to be sound), this is an extreme (but very interesting) anomoly.

Snowies drift into the deep south quite frequently in the winter. But there are extremely few field observations of snowy owls south of Canada during the breeding season, and the few that exist are un-mated single birds, perhaps birds that have been injurred, had been kept in captivity, or otherwise had their normal life patterns disrupted.

It's unfortunate that you couldn't at the time have brought this pair's nesting activity to the attention of any raptor biologists, or even some birders. It would have been a major story, somewhat equivalent to having scarlet macaws breeding in a Michigan pine forest.

Were you able to take any pictures of the pair and offspring? Pictures would still be very interesting to raptor biologists. Yours, I believe, is a first record of snowy owls successfully breeding so far south.

John_Blakeman: Off to the deep woods for a raptor observation--be back in about 5 days (hopefully), and will comment on your post, then.