Snowy Owl in Yellow Medicine County
2012-12-17

Uncommon in Yellow Medicine County in the Winter season

This "digiscope" image (not the best, due to the overcast skies and distance involved) is of an immature female found by Paul Egeland earlier in the day during the Cottonwood CBC. The location was along 180th Ave, 3/4 mile E of US Hwy 59, which is ~ 8 mi W and 2 mi S of Hanley Falls. Paul established this CBC (which includes NE Lyon Co and a piece of S Yellow Medicine Co) in the 1960s and has been compiling it virtually without interruption for ~50 years. He reports that this is only the second record of Snowy Owl on his CBC, which also included a Red-headed Woodpecker (a first for this CBC), record numbers of Ring-necked Pheasant (377), Wild Turkey (41) and Eurasian Collared-Dove (81), and a record-high total of 42 species.

Kim R. Eckert