Snowy Owl
// January 27th, 2012 // No Comments » // Birds of Manitoba, Birds of Prey, Interlake, Recent Posts, Winter
We are fortunate to have these beautiful arctic birds visit our area each winter. The Snowy Owls can often be spotted sitting on the tops of hydro poles, signs along side our highways or outbuildings. These owls are diurnal, meaning they are active both day and night. Their preferance for higher perches allows them to scan their hunting territory ( in our case the open prairie fields ) for small rodents or rabbits. They breed in the high arctic where their prey would be lemmings and sometimes ptarmigan. Both parents are fiece defenders of the nest and young owlets. The Snowy Owl featured here is either a female or immature bird as it has fairly extensive black markings. An adult male would be mainly white with fewer dark areas. Their bill is black, their eyes yellow and feet are heavily feathered. Snowy owls can weigh in the 6 pound range and have a wingspan of up to 59 inches which makes it one of our largest species of owls.
This snowy only moved when its head turned around to look the other direction. My neck hurt just watching it !
Enjoy !
~Sharon
The nest below belongs to a Killdeer. They don’t really build a proper nest, instead laying their eggs in natural indentations on the ground, quite often in the open along roadsides and fields. The nest below was in an open area of a little campground in the Interlake and she used a hollow of a rock as her nest. There were children running around and playing in the area. These birds don’t seem to make any effort to hide their nests at all. The nesting killdeer will use the injured bird routine to lead predators away from the nest, running along the ground away from the nest and pretending they can’t fly away. It must work as the killdeer population appears to be a thriving one.
