Birders having a hoot spotting owls in southern Delaware

What do a horticulturalist, a retiree and two people in the biotech industry have in common?

They are among dozens of birders flocking to southern Delaware to catch a glimpse of snowy owls.

“It doesn’t happen all the time, and it’s very exciting because it’s almost something exotic coming down to Delaware,” said Matt Del Pizzo, president of the Delaware Audubon Society.

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It’s not just the snowy owls that are prompting bird-lovers to drive hours to Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

Another northern species, the short-eared owl, has been showing up in force this year. Birders are almost guaranteed a glimpse of these agile hunters along Fowler Beach Road near Milford.

“Short-eared owls are putting on quite a show,” said expert birder Jim White. White said the owls, which usually hunt as it begins to get dark, are starting to fly around 3:30 p.m., giving birders and photographers better light to see them in flight.

White, who just led the annual Christmas bird count in Wilmington for the Delaware Ornithological Society, said the owls are hunting meadow voles, a type of rodent that lives in the marsh. He said he suspects an explosion in vole populations has attracted more short-eared owls this year.

“Owls in general are really fascinating,” said White, who also works at the Delaware Nature Society. “If you look back in literature and mythology and lure, owls make up a large amount of work that you’ll see – even in some of the more modern stuff like Harry Potter, where of course a snowy owl was a big part of that.”

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White said it’s rare to see snowy owls in Delaware, but that a good breeding season for the species last year means some juvenile birds must leave the Arctic to search for food. Because animals don’t evolve overnight, the owls are often seen along the coast because the topography of the beach resembles their tundra hunting grounds.

“They’re trading snow banks for dunes,” Del Pizzo said.

Chadds Ford, Pa., resident Hank Davis drove nearly two hours in hopes of capturing the perfect photograph of a short-eared owl shooting out from the grasses to hunt.

“This is my fourth time down here this season,” said the semi-retired photographer who made his living in horticulture. “Most people are here for the short-eared owl, but the snowy owl is a special treat.”

On an unusually warm December day, Davis, White and other bird enthusiasts geared up with binoculars and massive zoom lenses that look more like the Hubble telescope than camera equipment. By 3 p.m., most had already set up shop along the marsh grasses in the refuge waiting for the owls to make an appearance.

“Today we had four at 2:25 p.m. and that was it,” Davis said. “They haven’t come out again. We’re still waiting.”

Josh Pelta-Heller and Andrea Love who both work in the biotech industry, also made a nearly 100-mile trek from Glen Mills, Pa., to catch a glimpse of the owls.

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“I’m just the moral support,” joked Love, 30. Pelta-Heller, 39, has been a birder since he was a boy, and now Love is hooked, too.

It’s unusual to see so many short-eared owls at once, but it’s even more uncommon to see so many people along the secluded refuge road this time of year, Davis said.

“They’re coming out of the woodwork,” the 59-year-old said. “It might take an entire year to see this many people.”

Most of the birders searching for short-ears and snowies were strangers when they pulled up to the refuge. Lewes resident Sally Perry was dubbed the hero of the day by some of her fellow birders after she led them down to the beach to catch a glimpse of a snowy owl near the dunes.

“It’s a friendly community,” the 63-year-old said. “There’s always someone willing to share their knowledge with you.”

Perry zoomed in on a juvenile bald eagle strutting along a sandbar as she waited for the owls to begin their late afternoon hunt. Without her scope, the young eagle is no more than a dark blob on the horizon.

The snowy owl she spotted sitting on the beach earlier that day wasn’t much different. It was so far away that it looked like a white blob on the sand, she said.

“You don’t have to be a birder to be in awe of a bald eagle, which is our national symbol, or when you see 10,000 birds all in one spot,” the retiree said. “I think anybody would be in awe of it whether you’re a nature-lover or not. I think they just have to experience it.”

Spectators need to respect the distance the birds are trying to keep, Perry said.

“There’s been a lot of people getting too close to a snowy owl and flushing it out,” she said. “It can be irritating, and can create a scenario where people don’t want to share the information.”

For now, birding websites like eBird.org and the Delaware Birding group on Facebook are a flurry with rare sightings, including an American white pelican that prompted the birders to leave their marsh side posts and risk missing an emerging owl.

“We’re all networked now on the internet and we kind of congregate in certain areas,” White said. “It’s great to have people coming down and enjoying the marsh. If you can get people to learn to love them, to learn about the birds that live here and all the other creatures, when it comes time to make some decisions about land management or preservation, they’ll think back to the times they saw the short-eared owls here.” 

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.