Again, wonderful pics. What is it about the eyes of a bird of prey that just stun you for a moment? I have always liked looking into the eyes of barred owls because of their all-dark appearance, but the contrast of that deep golden yellow against the white plumage....it's so striking. For the record, Vonyon, I have seldom been able to walk up on an owl in the woods. I usually don't even know they are around until they are already swooping away to put some distance between us. THe times I have been close to them are the ones where I sat very very still and called them in. The first time this happened to me it was a big shock.I was bent over at the waist walking through knee deep water and shuffling my feet slowly to see what was living in the leaf litter. I had on a camo jacket and my face was not turned up and I guess the owl did not recognize me as a human. I was still bent over, staring at the water when I saw its reflection swoop in low and glide to a branch about 15 feet over my head. It was all I could do not to snap erect in surprise. Sometimes when I am alone in the woods, I mumble to myself, other times I might whistle or hum a song. Sometimes I am totally silent, but my favorite thing is to try and mimic animal noises and that day I had been hooting like a barred owl off and on for a few minutes. Kinda like singing in your car or talking to yourself in the bread aisle--things you do when no one else is around. Only I wasn't alone there in the creek and it was a shock when the owl showed up. And there I was stuck like a bent hairpin. I knew I had to eventually stand up but I knew the owl would see and probably hear any twitch. Luckily, by watching its reflection I noticed that every once it a while it would swivel its head around to the east to look at other things, and I would wait for that one moment and then raise my upper body bit by bit back to an upright position. I think now they call this Pilates.....it took a while of start and stop but I finally made it, but I was still looking down at the water. I have heard that even if you are well hidden from an animal, if they see your eyes it's all over. I waited again for the right moment, and then finally lifted my head to look directly at the bird while it was again turned east. When it spun back around and down to check on this strange lumpy hooting thing in the creek we were finally looking directly at each other. I could not believe those huge dark eyes, not at all like GHO eyes. Look right through you. Its head shifted a bit, and I don't know if it was my eyes or maybe a subtle twitch on my part but it had had enough of me. It flapped maybe three times and then dropped to a low glide off through the birches. I have only been this close to owls in a normal setting maybe three other times, and all three were responding to calls. But ahead of my experience in the creek I never knew it could work like that.

I love your birding equipment reviews! I also saw the spotting scope/cameras advertised in Wildird, but I've not yet taken the time to "scope out the scopes" to compare their photo quality with regular DSLRs. As expensive as lenses are, the scope/camera combo should save photographers thousands of dollars, if the quality is comparable.

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?

Thank you all! >>On the pics you posted today, did you use a stand or hold the camera?I was holding the camera, shooting from the cars sunroof. It was such a thrill doing this, my heartbeat went thru the roof, LOL, we, [my wife shooting with the canon S2IS from the side window] where fortunate to witness such a.....perhaps ones in a life time experience. I'm still in disbelieve! Snowy Owls have been rare the last about 10 years, ...this could be of scars food source in the artic tundra, where they breed and have young ones. >>Congratulations on your new camera!Thank you Doris & juanital... I should have mentioned, brand new shots this weekend, it has confused some of you.....sorry! Have used my very first digital camera from over a year ago, Santa got a new tele lens for this last Christmas. Konrad