Last night, the released Eurasian Eagle-Owl reminded us of our once in a century visitor, a Snowy Owl. Flaco used the same perches the Snowy Owl used in 2021, on fences, at 3rd Base, and on backstops. They even stretched the same way, are eating the same diet, and earlier in the year used the same exact branch of a Black Locust.
On February 26th last year, I had one of most incredible experiences of my life, seeing both a Snowy Owl and an Eastern Coyote on the North Meadow of Central Park. With the anniversary of the Snowy Owl’s arrival, I started to review old footage. Last year, I had presented the video as two different post. But we saw them at the same time.
As the Snowy Owl moved from a backstop on the eastern side of the North Meadow to one on the western side, she basically flew over the Eastern Coyote drawing our attention to the animal. It was an evening I will never forget, and something I never expect to see again. So, don’t let anyone tell you Central Park isn’t wild!
In the middle of the worst periods of COVID-19 pandemic, a Snowy Owl made an appearance in Central Park and stayed for over a month. Over that period of time, I got to watch the owl hunt, eat, play, and bathe. Like I have with Red-tailed Hawks, I observed as much as I could on those cold winter nights and came away with a new understanding of the species. I’ve edited down my daily videos to a 40 minute collection of the “best” examples of her behaviors. They show what we learned better than any description I could write.
It’s been a year since the Snowy Owl appeared in Central Park and stayed for about a month. What an incredible adventure we had watching her. To learn more about her, see my posts from last year.
Tonight the Snowy Owl arrived at the Compost Heap, but due to the high winds, aborted her landing and when directly to the eastern side of the North Meadow. It was backstop, ground, backstop, backstop, backstop, hunt, eat for a very long time, then some play in a few puddles. Then a puddle in the home team dugout before going out to 1st Base, and then we lost track of her. Similar to when she arrived, she used the infield sand right next to grass.
She took at least an hour to eat the first half of the Brown Rat, but then ate the second half in a few seconds.
She was done hunting and eating her first rat by 9:00 pm. Usually we would have looked for where she went after eating, but it was just too cold with high winds and dropping temperatures, so most of us went home.
Tonight, the Snowy Owl appeared in her regular perch, but stayed in the trees of the Compost Heap for over two hours. I was able to get dinner and return before she left!
She then went to backstop #11 and stayed for about 30 minutes before hunting a Brown Rat almost right in front of us on a park path that leads to the Recreation Center. I heard the rat cry as it was killed.
She stayed on the ground for a few minutes before flying to the infield of ball field 10. I thought there was snow, but it was water on the ground. She took her time eating and finally finished by eating a large piece whole around 11:45. She didn’t do as much cleaning and playing in the grass as she had in the snow, but she did do some before flying off.
