I happily shot an unvaccinated and undocumented Canadian immigrant yesterday morning. That is, I finally “got” a snowy owl this year, although the circumstances were not perfect and I hope to do better.
This female snowy was beyond the effective reach of my large lens, but I couldn’t get closer without bothering her. So, I apologize for the fuzziness.
She was at the edge of the woods, where she blended into the shadows and rocks on which she was perched. She slowly moved her head while surveilling the field in front of her, but kept her body still except for an occasional shift in weight. We had a staring contest for more than an hour in the cold, before I decided that she was too contented to fly. The males are whiter and smaller than the densely salted-and-peppered females, as shown in this Archive image of a male:
Leighton Archive
The current thinking seems to be that snowies migrate south when their population is swelling in the Arctic and Canada and, consequently, hunting territories are difficult to establish up north. (Image taken in Down East Maine on January 24, 2022.)