BIRD OF THE WEEK NUMBER 8

Snowy Owl

LAST FEBRUARY, I woke up to the not-unfamiliar screeching of crows. I knew a raptor was probably nearby. I once watched crows dive-bomb an immature Bald Eagle perched on a neighbor’s roof for over an hour. But eagles are common here and that morning I was half-awake, so I ignored the invitation to grab my camera and went downstairs to make coffee. My mistake. As I later learned, the crows were screeching at a Snowy Owl, which had landed on the roof above our front door. Photographers will travel hundreds of miles to see these birds. Had I but peered out the window, I would have seen the owl up close. Individual birds occasionally wander far outside their usual habitats—in this case, the arctic north—and wandering Snowy Owls had recently caused sensations in Seattle and, even more improbably, near Los Angeles. Here in Port Townsend, according to eBird, the massive database of locally reported sightings, a Snowy Owl last visited in 2012.

FORTUNATELY, a friend emailed to alert me to the owl’s visit. He’d seen the bird on our roof and found it amusing that it had picked my house to land upon. The owl had since flown to the local land trust office—still looking for friends, my informant supposed—and then to a house near a neighborhood bakery four blocks away. I collected my gear and and easily found the bird, perched on the rear rooftop of a home. There was no good angle from the street, but a man with his young boy was standing in his backyard facing the bird and welcomed me closer. While photographing birds I’ve often received helpful gestures like this from friends as well as strangers —another indication of how deeply human feeling runs for these creatures.

THE CROWS were still on the attack. As I wrote in a recent edition, the enmity between crows and owls also runs deep. I’ve never come across a convincing explanation, but I’ve witnessed it several times. A group of shrieking crows circles the owl and every minute or so one flies toward the head, claws outstretched. Surprisingly, the owls barely react, ducking when necessary and sometimes twisting around, like the one above, to keep track of the kamikaze crows. Every now and then, the owl will hiss or thrust one of its dangerous talons toward the offenders, but that is rare in my experience. I happily watched this angry dance for the next couple of hours, photographing the white and black birds against the white sky.

Nikon D500, 500mm lens, 1/800 sec, f5.6, ISO 400