I am new to Ohio birding (moved to Copley, OH in August) but have spent 25
years chasing owls in Minnesota - and have seen Snowy owls living off of
pigeons on the rooftops of the University of Minnesota, tucked into the
harbor ice in Duluth, but far and away the most Snowies seem to be in the
flat prairie areas, sitting in a field, on a haystack or an out-building.
Airports seem to fit the Snowies image fo good terrain, and the
Minneapolis-St Paul Airport gets Snowies every year, we had as many as 5 at
one time one year. The like large rodents and rabbits (jackrabbits in MN),
but are very opportunistic. My friend, Norm Smith, of the Boston area,
bands Snowy Owls at Logan Field and has seen them take many mallards and
geese, some pheasants, and a few hawks. Vic Peppe, a falconer from MN, who
flies white Gyrfalcons, is always afraid for his birds when mantling a
freshly killed pheasant or Hungarian Partridge, as Snowies like to eat
falcons, or their prey, or both. Vic tells me Snowies are all over the flat
open areas, sitting quietly till something lopes or flies by. Falconry
season is in February in MN. He sees as amany as ten a year in different
locales...So Paul's challenge is a good one, get out and look for them, and
don't be like me, taking my life into my hands setting up my scope along a
busy highway to view what proved to be a plastic bag...done that a few
times actually. I wish you all a grand holiday and Good Birding...

Mark Alt
Copley. OH
Summit Cty
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 10:06 PM, Paul Hurtado <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> A few other ideas for branching out into new or otherwise underbirded areas
> (courtesy of eBird):
>
> 1. Visit underbirded counties:
>
> Here is a map I made a while ago showing the number of eBird checklists by
> county (as of 2009)
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauljhurtado/5662560328/
>
> For more details on "county birding" for eBird
>
> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/county_birding
>
> 2. Bird random locations:
>
> If you use ebird, see the link above for details on conducting random
> counts -- which help collect data from areas with poor coverage.
>
> Otherwise, you can get creative and come up with additional ways to add
> some randomness to your outings (e.g. spin a bottle and spend the day
> birding in a random direction from home -- highly recommended for central
> Ohio birders!).
>
> Most importantly, have fun! :)
>
> Good birding,
> Paul Hurtado
>
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