The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
60°F
Current Conditions
Scattered clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Snowy owls make rare showing

A snowy owl perches on a downtown building in Bellevue, Wash., last week. Snowy owls are being spotted in Western Washington, making one of the species' rare migrations south. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press
A snowy owl perches on a downtown building in Bellevue, Wash., last week. Snowy owls are being spotted in Western Washington, making one of the species' rare migrations south. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

BELLEVUE, Wash. – Snowy owls are being spotted throughout the region, apparently making one of their rare migrations south.

Paul Talbott, owner of the general contracting company TCI Inc., watched a snowy owl for several hours one day this past week while it sat on a second-story ledge just feet from his downtown Bellevue office.

“It’s a gorgeous bird,” Talbot said Wednesday. “He just sat there all day long. His head kept turning about 360 degrees. He’d shake the water off his head when it rained.”

Although the bird disrupted his work routine, Talbot said it was worth it.

“Like my business manager said, ‘That’s the best Christmas present I could have had,’ ” he said.

“There was a steady flow of people who wanted to see it. How could I refuse?”

In recent weeks, a snowy owl has also been lingering in Seattle’s Discovery Park, and at least three have been counted to the north in Whatcom County.

Snowy owls are 20 to 27 inches long, weigh 2.5 to 4.3 pounds and have a wingspan of 54 to 65 inches.

They spend their winters in the Arctic, eating mainly lemmings and voles, said Gretchen Albrecht, a raptor keeper at the Woodland Park Zoo.

It’s uncommon for snowy owls to migrate this far south in the winter, but every few years, Albrecht said, the lemming population in northern Alaska dips and the raptors head south in search of food.

“In those years you get owls in odd places,” Albrecht said. “This is pretty far south, the far end of their winter movement.”

Albrecht said she spotted Discovery Park’s snowy owl about two weeks ago.

It was the first one she’d seen in the area since joining the raptor center five years ago.

The last time birders of Whatcom County saw a lot of snowy owls was nine years ago, in the winter of 1996-97.

Denver Holt, a snowy owl researcher who divides his time between Charlo, Mont., and Barrow, Alaska, said he’s received reports of owl sightings this year from the Great Lakes, the Pacific Northwest and Montana.