Snowy Owl in South East North Carolina

Last night I got an email through the listserv from John Ennis that a Snowy Owl had finally been seen in South East North Carolina at the East end of Sunset Beach.  Although I had conference calls lined up for the morning, I resolved that I would see this bird before it potentially flew the coop.  So I got up at 5am and drove the 1.5 hours down there.  I pulled into the last community on the island and parked. Before even turning off the engine, I spotted in the gloaming (been waiting a while to be able to use that word) a ghostly apparition fly by 20 yards in front of me over the dunes. Of course I was unprepared and fumbled with my camera and it was too dark anyway.  It was gone as quick as it came.  So I went after it, driving towards the houses.  After 15 minutes or so I located it on top a McMansion and again fumbled with my camera and it was gone again.  It seemed to be very alert and in hunt mode.  I drove around for another half hour or so and then decided to check the dunes on foot at the point.  There I met another birder/photographer Keith Green.  He had not seen it.  After walking around the whole point we came up empty and we split up, him on foot and me in the car.  On the way back towards the bridge, about half way in the middle of the island there the bird sat on top of an upper level summer home deck.  I snapped a couple hundred pics and soon Keith found me and he was able to get great pics too. Great times!

                            Here was one of the first shots where he/she was weary of my presence.

 After a while he/she ignored me and went back about her/his business which included mostly preening,  although in this shot it looks like he/she is having a good cough.

 She/he even was practicing a little Yoga, not sure if this is downward dog or what.

            Here she/he is posing for a glamour shot.

 I was watching the bird so long the weather actually changed and it became sunny.

 Thanks to Keith who let me take some shots with his lens.  However, I am not sure which ones were his.  He also gave me some good pointers on shooting with manual settings.  I definitely need to learn more about photography.

On my way out, I got this immature Bald Eagle and bunch of ducks at Twin Lakes.