Snowy Owl Program Thurs. 19 Jan 7 PM | Sea & Sage Audubon

[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

As most local birders now know, a Snowy Owl showed up a few weeks ago in Cypress in northwest Orange County. It sat on the rooftops of various houses, and every so often would disappear, probably to go catch ground squirrels on one of the local military bases, although we don’t know that for sure. When the big storms arrived the other day and buckets poured down, the bird disappeared. It may have moved farther south in Orange County, or perhaps even perched in a tree (not many of those on the tundra).

Sea & Sage Audubon is doing a Zoom presentation on Snowy Owls (in general, not this particular Snowy Owl), presented by Denver Holt, inspired by the extremely uncommon appearance of the species this far south.

When: Tomorrow, Thursday, 19 January 2003, 7 PM Pacific Standard Time

Link to Webinar: https://wildlife-ca-gov.zoom.us/j/87304541902
If that doesn’t work:
Sea & Sage Zoom Page: https://wp.seaandsageaudubon.org/home-sas/whats-new/#header
On this page scroll down a little bit and click on the “Join Webinar” button.
I hope that works, because that’s all I know about it.

Here’s the bird itself, photographed by Lynzie Flynn a few weeks ago. For those who have seen this bird afar across the tundra, a tiny dot in a telescope, seeing it 25 yards away is a real treat. Those “mustache” feathers on both sides of the bill are stranger to see than you might think. [More below.]

Snowy Owl in Cypress, Orange County, December 2022.
Photo by Lynzie Flynn

There are evil rumors afoot that this bird is related to the mysterious Western Roof Owl, but I’m certain that’s not true. I saw it myself and it has nothing in common with that bird, save for the roof-perching. And you could watch it breathe. Try doing that with the Western Roof Owl.

I just picked this comment off the <OrangeCountyBirding@groups.io> bird alert.

From: “Ryan Winkleman” <rswinkleman[AT]gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2023 16:20:50 -0800
Subject: Re: [OrangeCountyBirding] Snowy Owl

While it’s probably unlikely that the bird will be refound unless it happens to show up back in the same place or in one of the major OC birding locations, I also want to recognize that some people may not want the manic attention should it show up in a residential area again. As of last night there were 1,011 eBird reports of this one single bird over the last three weeks, and my understanding is that at least on some days police had to be present for safety purposes with the crowds. What I do want to say, though, is that should the bird randomly show up alive somewhere else in Orange County on private or restricted property or in an area where mobs would otherwise be unwelcome, I would urge the finder(s) to please still notify me for our county records as well as Tom Benson for the CBRC records (secretary@californiabirds.org).

Thanks!