It's been a good winter for Snowy Owls in the UK, with long stayers on Scilly and Orkney, a bird intermittently around the Wash and others briefly in South Wales and elsewhere. Numbers on continental Europe were unimpressive this winter, but there was a large influx in the US and so it's quite probable the British birds were of American origin.
I'd only ever seen one in the UK (Shetland, 1990) and another couple in the States, most recently in 1998. I'd been hopeful of connecting with one this winter, but that seemed increasingly unlikely as spring got underway. One was photographed on St David's Head in Pembrokeshire last weekend but reported to have gone, so it was a surprise when news came out that it was still present on Thursday afternoon. Once news came through of it's continued presence on Friday it was just too tempting, so I set off at lunchtime accompanied by work colleague Dan Foy and his ten year old budding birder son. The journey was long, four and a half hours winding through central Wales, but at least there were plenty of Red Kites to keep us company.
We arrived around in the car park around 6pm. A new area for me and I will be back, it's stunning. The walk up the headland was only 10 minutes or so, and a few Choughs passed by uttering their cheerful squawks.
The immature female Snowy Owl was immediately on view and remarkably close. Pleasingly, there was practically no-one else there. We waited for the her to get more active as the day ticked on towards dusk and the few remaining birders drifted off too, we were left with a handful of interested locals as the bird awoke, stretched, preened and readied itself for the night ahead.
A raven was clearly interested in the visitor, twice alighting on a nearby rock, but then not getting too close either.
As dusk approached she sat up on a rock and stretched and preened, clearly readying herself for flight. And then off, heading down the valley and giving excellent flight views before disappearing seemingly out to sea. We assumed that it would head around to a nearby headland, but it seems that we were the last people to see it as there was no sign for the Saturday crowd. Presumably the same bird was reported a few days later heading northwards long the coast about 30 miles away and a possible was reported later on Anglesey. A couple of weeks later a remarkably similar bird was appeared on St Kilda, so perhaps the same bird had headed north and west, headed back to the US. Who knows?
We ambled back to the car and began the long journey back through the dark feeling very glad to have made the effort.
