White Flight -Winter 2015
Long before J.K. Rowling made them famous, Snowy Owls captured people’s imaginations.
by: Ginger Andrews
photography by: Nicole Harnishfeger
The winter of 2013-14 will long be remembered as the one of many, many, many snowy owls. Sure, we might see one or two every few years. But that
winter those charming, golden-eyed, white-feathered celebrities of the bird world seemed to be everywhere from Oregon to the Carolinas. Astounded birders in Texas and Florida rubbed their optics in disbelief. One even made it to Bermuda.
Nantucketers saw them from Sconset to Madaket, Tom Nevers to Miacomet. Snowy owls staked out the dunes, they sat on roofs and chimneys, they perched next to white plastic irrigation pipes in the Milestone Cranberry Bog. Good camouflage, that, for a bright white bird in a mostly brown landscape. One lingered all winter on the fifth green at Sankaty Head Golf Course. Few rabbits played through. Nantucket’s Christmas Bird Count tallied 33, an unprecedented record.
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