[obol] Snowy Owl at South Beach SP in Newport

[Cindy Ashy]

About 30 minutes before sunset today I spotted a Snowy Owl from the back dune
ridge of the South Beach State Park in Newport....I was standing on the highest
spot near the NOAA solar powered weather station and looking east across the
tree tops and trails....very far in the distance you see a few houses and there
is one house with an A-frame gable and the Snowy Owl was roosting in a
pineshore tree in line with this house from my vantage point. I was using 10x
bins and I have to say that if I had not followed last year's Snowy Owl around
so much and did not have a really good feel for shape and size at various
distances in this particular location and a good feel for the subtle movements
of the Snowy Owl, I probably would have never spotted it. However, someone with
a GOOD spotting scope could probably do quite well from this vantage
point....if you have a spotting scope like mine, don't bother :-) as it will
take some magnification I'm guessing on the order of 30-40x to get a good
detailed view...you should be able to make out it's a Snowy Owl at 10-20x (the
lower end only if you're really familiar with the critter).

OK....with the sunlight fading I went in search of an up close view so here's
some more detail:

If you were to draw a perpendicular line from a point between the first and
second fingers of the south jetty....with the starting point being a little
closer to the second finger...you would find the tree that the owl was
in....and it was not sitting at the top of the tree, it was kinda hidden
amongst some dense branches about 1/3 of the way from the top....and the tree
was part of a dense cluster of trees....VERY easy to miss....and the trails
leading through this area are pretty primitive and there is no trail where
these trees are exactly....and there's lots of wet boggy places...and once you
get into this area, it becomes sort of a maze to navigate through and it took
some doing to re-locate the owl....basically, it's a very different perspective
looking from the highest point of the back dune ridge compared to the maze of
trees once you're down in them....I had trouble finding my way out with my only
light being the illumination of some pink clouds....but those intense yellow
eyes looking back at me made it all worth it.

It was a spectacular sunset aftermath and I watched it and the trees to see if
I could spot the owl flying out after sunset (assuming the same behavior from
last year's owl) but never spotted it flying....but the owl was a nurturing
uplifting gift from nature after a rough afternoon.

Cindy Ashy 


 
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