Birders are seeing 10 to 20 of the ghostly white predators a day in the farm fields north of the reservoir.
With reports of a rodent population crash in the owls' usual wintering grounds along the Canadian border and a veritable explosion of rodents in parts of Montana, snowy owls are taking advantage of the smorgasbord to the south.
That doesn't make them easy to spot, however. For much of the day, the owls sit like bumps in the furrowed field. They barely move, except to occasionally turn their heads. When immobile, snowy owls looked like blobs of white frosting on an angel food cake.
“If you didn't know about them, they just blend in with the snow,” said Carol Carr, a Kalispell resident who drove to the Mission Valley on Monday to see the birds.
“But if you're looking for them, they pop right out,” added her husband, Rob Carr. “It's amazing how they just show up.”
The field had a wind-packed crust of snow. Seen from one direction, it appeared all white. From another angle, the furrows were half dirt, half snow. The owls seemed to prefer one particular potato field to the many wheat and grain patches nearby.
Snowy owls are bigger than crows and smaller than eagles. Younger snowy owls have more gray than white feathers, looking like dirty snow. Their chests are barred with lines of black or gray and white, while their wings may have flecks of black among the white.
As they age, snowy owls become almost solid white. Unlike many other owls, snowy heads don't have the flattened facial disk.
Davis said the owls became especially popular when the Harry Potter wizard movies came to town. The young wizard has a snowy owl that delivers the mail.
During her school presentations, dozens of children beg to know if they can have a snowy owl for a pet, too. Aside from the fact that you need a federal license to handle such raptors, Davis said snowy owls aren't very friendly and don't do well in captivity.
That, of course, isn't stopping crowds of bird lovers from prowling the Pablo area these days. A birders' bulletin board on the Internet has been full of comments from those successful or unsuccessful in spotting the ghostly visitors.
“We've been having almost as much fun watching the birders,” said Charles Blem, who lives near the reservoir. “Every time you look around, there's someone driving around. This generates a lot of excitement.”
He and his wife, Leann, were taking a hike along the farm roads Monday afternoon, getting stopped regularly by motorists trying to find the best vantage points. Charles said a couple of days earlier, he spotted 18 snowy owls from his front porch in one morning.
At 5:10 p.m. Monday, the potato field came alive. The sun was just above the rim of mountains to the west. One after another, the white bumps extended their wings, gliding up to fence posts and irrigation pipes and tree branches. Some appeared to quarter the field, swooping barely a foot or two above the stubble while barely flapping their wings. Others preened or fluffed their feathers on their high perches.
About 5:25, the owls started to quit the field for a line of trees and bushes around Pablo Reservoir. Seen from below, their grey-white plumage blended perfectly with the clouds. Then, along with the sunlight, they vanished.
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