The topic title is just to get your attention. It is fairly routine to hear and read birders' reports of owls, and this time of year the not-so-frequent appearances of strikingly white snowy owls in wide-open spaces is when we hear about them from observers. I have plenty of opinions about the behavior of humans in these circumstances, but won't rehearse them here..."YOU CAN FIND THOUSANDS OF GREAT PHOTOS OF SNOWY OWLS FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET"... no, no, make me stop! I realize only small select communities like ours and the Connecticut site carry actual conversation among their users. I guess Ohio-birds has lost its luster for serious bird observers---we saw no posts here yesterday, one the day before, five the day before that---but the Connecticut list, serving a population 1/3 the size of Ohio's [http://birding.aba.org/maillist/CT01] had 33 yesterday, 15 of them about their not-so-rare snowies and "owl etiquette", with a tasty bit of snarkiness of course but many quite informative views from thoughtful experienced observers. It's worthwhile looking at these, where most posters seem to have seen a lot of owls, and read with care the opinions of those who've paid attention to others' remarks, something you seldom see on the Ohio list... Just sayin', Bill Whan ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]