Amanda and I searched the vicinity of the old Giant and the Lee Airport today in Edgewater, MD (AA Co.) to try to locate the possible Snowy Owl that was reported with no luck. We spent about 40 min. driving the area and carefully scanning the airport including all the buildings and roofs, parking lot, and the adjacent field which had a few Ring-billed Gulls, a couple hundred Canada Geese, a few Turkey and Black Vultures, and about 40 Crow sp. There was an adult Red-shouldered Hawk perched near the road that appeared to be hunting from its perch which gave nice looks. There was a dog running loose on the airfield, which is probably not compatible with a Snowy sticking around if the sighting was correct to begin with. The area is pretty small, although the habitat itself looks good, I'm sure there are much better and larger areas elsewhere in south county. If interested I provided more precise location information, based on Dan's original post (i.e., the old Giant) and the airport. 

The old Giant: http://tinyurl.com/7sd4koc

Lee Airport: http://tinyurl.com/7k2g57j


P.S. There was a post several weeks ago on another listserv that mentioned an incident regarding Snowies at airports that may be of interest. There was a Snowy being seen at the Portland Jetport in ME and was being enjoyed by many birders until someone (who thought they were doing the right thing) told the airport about the sighting. They were told by airport staff that because they made the airport aware of the Owl that it was the airports duty to scare the owl away or to shoot it if it would not leave, due to aircraft-bird collision safety. Not sure if this is an FAA policy or an airport-specific one, I just thought it was interesting. 

Good Birding,


Frank Marenghi
Annapolis, MD

 		 	   		  
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