Snowy Owl sighting yesterday at Frenchman's Bay - Pickering

[greyowl51]

[attachment=0:349620ik]Snowy Owl gives me a lookover - Frenchmen's Bay - Ontario - Canada.jpg[/attachment:349620ik]
Yesterday, my wife, Jean and I spent about two and half hours, between 12:30pm to 3:00pm observing the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) that has been spotted at Frenchman's Bay, Pickering.  
The Owl was located on the ice in the middle of the bay.  I have posted several of our pictures along with some of the video I filmed at:  http://frametoframe.ca/snowy-owl-sighti ... io-canada/

[Rotarran]

Nice pic.  I went there today but had no luck...seems like there was too much human activity on the ice today, including a couple of skaters, some hockey players and ice fishers.  I heard it was there at 11am but I got there around noon.  In fact in general the whole bay appeared quite stale...very few birds around...even the Canada Geese were mostly absent.

Oh well, hopefully better luck next time.

[JW Mills]

Very nice photo essay!
I passed by twice today.
First at 11:30, no luck, but I too heard that it was out on the ice til about 11.
The second time was at 2:30 and we found the snowie perched on one of the poles in the open water area of the bay.

[Rotarran]

I passed by today at 5pm and there it was in the middle of the ice only for a couple of minutes.  Then it flew to some trees on the other side of the bay.  A local fellow birder had a good scope with her and she spotted it in the trees.  We jumped in our cars to go around the bay and try to get closer.  I followed her because she knew where to go.  Once we got there, it was too late as it had flow away.  But a few minutes later she spotted it again, it was back on the ice...but a bit further North and East than usual.  I decided to venture out onto the ice to see how close I could to get a good picture.  It may have seemed risky but there were other people on the ice (fishermen) so I wasn't too worried.  I got close enough to take pictures that prove it's a Snowy Owl but not pictures to be proud of.  For my 36x zoom it was still too far away.

[Andygod]

Great pictures, I got a couple last week in the snowstorm, but had no luck finding the owl when the weather was nice.  I will have to go back and have another look, but I am too nervous about going out on the ice.  Maybe time to go buy an even bigger lens.  I was thinking of going to Presquille on Wednesday, but will have to keep an eye on the weather.  It's a shame when work starts to get in the way of my personal life.