How to Draw a Dad Arctic Owl Easy Flying
Greg Frey
We had just seen it the day before. Or rather didn't see it.
It was the first week in December, and snow covered the ground. My father in-law stepped out of his truck at the Christmas tree field.
"Did you see the snowy owl?"
"What snowy owl?"
"The one you drove right next to."
Snowy owls frequent his farm fields. Every year when the frost comes down from the north, so do they. They like his hayfields and the power poles upon which they can scan them. But often they're on the ground as this one was. With the dry brown blades of grass sticking up through the snow, their mottled brown and white feathers make excellent camouflage.
After cutting two Frasier firs for our living rooms, we headed back toward the barn. Sure enough, the immense bird jumped up from the grass and clearly showed himself. He looked big and healthy. Our hunt for the perfect Christmas tree completed, he simply watched us go by and continued his own hunt for voles. It was a good sighting and a great way to begin the holiday season. Somehow these seasonal visitors from the north are special. They are like Christmas trees.
The next morning, driving home after church in a bitter storm, we began scanning the power poles for the owl, but there he was against the fence at the edge of the road. He had his back to the wind, and for all we knew he was searching for a rodent in the tall grass. However, something didn't seem right. We began to worry, and so did my in-laws.
They decided approaching a possibly sick or wounded raptor might be a better job for me than them, so later in the day I drove back over in the snowstorm. Donning some leather work gloves, I quietly approached the owl from the barnyard side of the fence and peered over the top. There he remained, motionless. I took a few tentative steps forward and spoke quietly to it. Nothing. He lay there, a soft blanket of snow covering his back. I reached down and cupped his wings so he couldn't thrash, and that's when I knew. His body was stiff and calm in death. I pulled him up, his feet still tightly gripping wads of long grass. I assumed he had been hit by a car, but his body was pristine. No broken bones, no missing feathers, no sign of thrashing in the snow anywhere between the road and the fence. This graceful bird had died, and I had no idea why.
The only thing I did know was that such a creature should not be desecrated. In the least, he would receive a proper burial, but throwing dirt onto those beautiful white and brown feathers seemed like throwing spaghetti sauce on a Van Gogh. That's when my mental rolodex began sifting for a naturalist who worked with children. I called my friend and DNR Conservation Officer Duane Budreau.
He told me any educational center with a salvage permit could legally possess the bird. Raven Hill, AuSable Institute, Mackinac State Historic Parks, Camp Daggett. Most already had snowy owl species.
Cheri Leach, at Raven Hill, would definitely take the bird to replace an aging specimen, but it was still snowing hard, and the roads were glazed. She didn't want to drive to Petoskey, and I didn't want to drive to East Jordan. So, we stalled like two poker players waiting for the other to show their hand, and Cheri educated me.
She explained that the brown mottled feathers indicated this bird was a juvenile. It's the adults that develop the bright white plumage. Without obvious damage, she was certain it had starved.
"People think these owls just come down due to lack of food up north, but it's the adults kicking the juveniles out."
Like any juvenile, their hunting skills aren't finely honed yet. Compound that with a long arduous journey into unfamiliar territory, and some don't make it.
"There was a young one that hung around in Boyne City for several weeks. People would see it sitting up on rooftops. That's not a natural place for them. It was trying to find food." (And possibly looking for food in all the wrong places.)
"They'll eat voles and mice, but their favorite northern Michigan food is ermine — the little white weasels with the black tips on their tails, also called stoats," Leach explained.
They'll also eat pigeons, rats, rabbits, dead fish, and anything else smaller and slower than them. As our heaviest North American owls, tipping the scales at a whopping 4- to 6 pounds, they eat a lot.
"Back in the 60s when I first started teaching, the rules and regulations at the DNR were different. There were none. I always had something in my classroom I was rehabbing for them. One year it was a barred owl. That guy got fed two to three times per day."
She also said not to expect a snowy owl to keep you company all winter.
"They hunt out an area, and then they move on. They don't stay in one place. We had a juvenile on our ancient world Easter Island head. He would sit on top of the moai where he could overlook the field. He stayed for three weeks in January and then moved on."
I wanted closure for this beautiful bird, so I told Cheri I would bring it to East Jordan the next day. But before I could, the phone rang again.
"We'll take it!" an excited voice from Camp Daggett said. "I'm sending someone over right now."
Thirty minutes later Andy Hayes, executive director of Camp Daggett pulled into my driveway. He assured me that our owl would take a place of honor among the log rafters of the lodge where generations to come can enjoy its wildness and beauty.
I hope they will appreciate this young creature as much as I did.
With 27 years experience teaching all subjects to fourth and sixth graders, Greg Frey is a jack of all trades and a master of none. With 52 years experience wandering around in the outdoors, his hunting and fishing skills follow a similar path. When he masters the skills of the outdoors, he'll take up paddle ball. He hopes that day never comes. Based on the fact he's genuinely surprised when he catches a fish or spots a deer, it probably never will. He's good with that.
Source: https://www.record-eagle.com/news/greg-frey-grace-not-wasted-for-an-unfortunate-snowy-owl/article_ff065850-7264-11ec-804e-0f9affcbea37.html
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