After weeks of procrastination, yesterday I finally decided to 'grasp the nettle', 'take the bull by the horns', 'bite the bullet' or any one of a hundred other idioms and make the six hour round trip to Zennor and the
Snowy Owl. I tried to muster up a car load of birders but only Bun was able to come, he'd even seen it before but was still keen to see it again! We set off at 5:00 AM hoping to arrive at daybreak and this is almost exactly what happened. We arrived at 7:45 and it was only just beginning to get light, which was good because it gave us time to break out the flasks for a pre-twitch coffee. It certainly wasn't a very popular bird today. While we were waiting in the car a single birder turned up and that was it! The three of us made our way for about a kilometre over the boggy moorland until the owl was spotted sitting out on a large rock.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOFxONl6J5HFB6VFyyBQIO_7n-9zmM52FEjyvELcqoBGvN3NnoUB0ZI48NkokpZXaPXMwjhuiJuRSw2mg6JDGZEdaku5OCZEwTOp55-BqnJPZf11jZ_Tm-bOqNysh1KEpKZ6K5p40vREX/s400/massive+twitch.jpg)
Smiling faces all round as scopes are directed towards their target which was only feet away!...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGKPsbcDlcfT_RkAGgPbj8ladpTVPGZzthzPcrdObF_TURTxYMcZGrHgTyUNWAyDh4jkvhkrnJvJtUt1JhVC1k4ltLEz2HLHrzNsBcMAdUHhasOtO2Pc9r7YeWKDRXoGJ5ids-pScWk1A/s400/owl1.jpg)
.... About 1500 feet away!! The
Snowy Owl was on that hillside over there! I'll zoom in a bit....
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XCNGbwyuB1SpogN4iBKGOOIO-Pn9qhibtLUoLTBH2sP7jhZ4kSbTEsYqqbCFy1ll0HD1oXouc8wc1cWtgNDGoERZH1BFI9URCX7IySENVMaXo7IXMsnpDfTLMc3kfFMAGuFFjZ3zXbbi/s400/crippling+view.jpg)
There it is! Look!! Right in the centre; that white specky blob just below the horizon, you
can see it...*squints*.
OK I'll zoom in more...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1RnOYd7K4v3MhFQOjSoPDjTCPWWYPIEFHqPFSqejbyedhfuftjHVW25GSi0k3CbEunjG0WT3ixPwoY5YLmuA2n7FvSWvsr97ejgKgsZZwv3__hA7f8C0B6DwMhTjONymR2JF9RDOQ_cBD/s400/owl3s.jpg)
Tah-Da!! A much bigger blob. Actually (if you enlarge this) you can see that it's got eyes and a beak and everything!!
Seriously though we did have very good views through our scopes and the rising sun really made it stand out nicely. It was awake and looking around, a truly awesome bird!! It really doesn't matter that this is the best photo I could get because it just so happens that I got a lovely Christmas card from Steve, with a
Snowy Owl picture on it and it's an almost exact representation of the Zennor bird. Take a look:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLXCKL8ahyphenhypheng8gSZ2VEg6AqcQzGhQNSQzYzmv0usTWQdN-NXsEhyphenhyphenr7kdKGHNimG_PXT8yL8289s0_6gqTC3-bOezt6e9l0v3JUFH55B4-3euwcLKVhjEwaN-zsVPRX9JDLJJ3XVlK6qyezX/s400/closeup.jpg)
Our scope views looked exactly like this...OK, not exactly, obviously the eyes were open more and there was just a smidgen less glitter!!
The views on our way back to the car were simply stunning:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaDTbfT4iMCFJ3WE9oylyJitcFlRegUCnoaTcaJCSF5fTX6wD1WqnPCnyURMyuREiIQDnP8S-SYjW2SOaKApWTFTdr4LzdyWFZnNul1ENzSmZOvPrz9K067PS4DPtA_ETMQXgCb-W1cHVy/s400/view.jpg)
Looking to the Southwest from Zennor Moor. The colours were gorgeous!
We watched the owl for around an hour all told, leaving at 10-ish and were back in Seaton for 1:00PM. This was my first 'self- driven' twitch and it went very well indeed so I'm sure it's not going to be my last!
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