Snowy Owl feeding on Common Merganser

[cosmo3667]

Seen Out on the ice feeding and gaurding his meal and as I approached still very far off it took its meal with it and flew a little further out.
No baiting was done to produce these photos
Snacking

rats someone approaches

Better take my meal alittle further out.

[Dinusaur]

One dies so that the other one lives - what a great capture of natural cycle of life.

[Rotarran]

Wow they must be getting desperate if they're hunting ducks about the same size as the owl itself.  Not sure how it caught the Merganser because, as I saw recently, ducks can fly very fast.  In fact I saw some ducks out-fly the white-morph Gyrfalcon in Sudbury.  It must have been a sneak attack for sure.

[thouc]

Probably taken at night. From the link Kris sent about the Snowy Owl GPS tracking project, one of the owls made flights out to sea at night, presumably to hunt sleeping ducks.

[anatum]

Great find and pics.
I have noticed a lot of Snowy owls hanging out by the lake rather than inland; at least in the GTA. I have found a few duck kills on the Spit with black and white feathers and assume that duck hunting is rather successful for these owls. I think even up in the Arctic they take ducks when rodents aren't plentiful.

[mr.sharp-photo]

i once saw a peregrine falcon go after a canada goose at the spit.
they may go after ones that look sick or slow.

[Henrique Pacheco]

I'm sure they go after the sick or weak ones because I once saw a peregrine and a bald eagle go after a Canada goose that couldn't move.

[byrons]

fabulous pictures.  thanks for sharing.

[Brian Bailey]

Nice set! It surprises me sometimes how rarely I see a Snowy actually hunting.  I recall seeing one eating a duck (a Goldeneye if I recall correctly) at Humber Bay a few years ago.  

I read something about the diet of Snowies on the west coast including a lot of waterfowl, but I can't find it now.  This is from the All About. Birds site:   "Snowy Owls are also one of the most agile owls, able to catch small birds on the fly. On both their breeding and wintering grounds, their diet can range widely to include rodents, rabbits, hares, squirrels, weasels, wading birds, seabirds, ducks, grebes, and geese." :shock:

BB

Sent from my birdroid using Tapatalk.

[cairnstone]

I recently took this photograph. The victim is an American Robin.

[Bluffs Birder]

A Snowy Owl, which was seen from the tip of the pier at Whitby harbour yesterday spent most of it's time observing the ducks that were flying around the area.

Walter

[MEGHAN]

The first and second shots are really cool