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 > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. > Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. > Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at > www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. > > You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS > Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] > ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]