How to find a Snowy Owl

Kevin McGowan, a biologist and ornithologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has these suggestions on how to spot a Snowy Owl. His tips were published on January 22 in the National Geographic Daily News.

Snowy Owl

Find open spaces. They prefer open ground because they're not used to seeing trees in their normal breeding habitat in the Arctic tundra regions. They rarely perch on trees. Instead, look for airport fields, farmlands and pastures, or coastal dunes.

Use eBird, a real-time online bird map. You can create a map specific for Snowy Owls, then limit your data range to January 2013 (to pick up early arrivals), then zoom on your location to see if Snowy Owls have been reported there.

Don't limit your gaze to the ground. You might see a Snowy Owl perching on fence posts, hay bales, barns or utility poles.


The eBird site also has some calls this season's Snowy Owl migration "one of the most dramatic national history spectacles in the Northeast and it is a story that continues to unfold."

Take advantage of this rare opportunity that may come once in a lifetime. Get out there and watch!