At 4:00 pm today, my wife and
At 4:00 pm today, my wife and At 4:00 pm today, (10/25) my wife and I encountered 2 Snowy Owls along Hwy 61 at Cutface Creek/Good Harbor Bay in Cook County. One bird was dead in the long grass west of the creek on the lake side of the mouth of the creek. It appeared to be a typically marked adult female on close inspection. On the east side of the creek, about 150 yards away, was a live heavily marked 1st year bird. It was perched on the peak of a large rock. There were two interesting things about this observation. The area on the lakeside of the creek mouth is currently a large area of landscaping erosion prevention grass mats due to the recent bridge work on Hwy 61 near the Cutface parking lot. It occurred to me that this could appear to the birds to be tundra-like in appearance, but in reality, not a good place to hunt. Also, on the return trip from Grand Marais, the young bird had flown over right next to the location of the dead bird. Could the young bird have been the offspring of the female? At the risk of reading too much into this sighting with emotional overtones, we left with a sad feeling about the fragility of such a powerful species in irruption years like this appears to be by all the recent early sightings. Bill Stjern AAlso h i i ;00 ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
