A friend of mine called me just a few minutes ago to say that he had just seen a SNOWY OWL (around 9:00am) in flight being mobbed by about a hundred crows. He described it as being a very large non-hawk raptor, with long rounded wings, all white, not much of a tail, no obvious neck, large head. He described the moment for him as "oh my gosh, that's not a hawk…that's a Snowy Owl! My friend was traveling along North Plain Street, on the West side of the open park which is the remnants of the DEC superfund cleanup site, across the street from the North side of GIAC. The owl was flying above the treetops across the East side of that park, headed South. After nearly colliding with another car, my friend pulled over to get a better look, but could not relocate the bird, but could still see all of the crows in the area which had been in pursuit of the owl. He said that the owl was completely surrounded by the crows when he first saw it.
Keep your eyes open for a large white raptor in the downtown Ithaca area! Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
