Snowy Owls are everywhere, as you can see if you check the map link below. Ann and Kevin Commers and their daughter Grace didn't have to go far to see their Snowy. Kevin and Grace found the bird in the photo tangled in a soccer net in their St. Anthony Park neighborhood. It was on Thanksgiving Day. "The owl was stuck in the net, and fatigued after a night of struggling," Ann told me via email. "My husband put a t-short over the owl's head, and with leather gloves untangled the poor thing while my daughter cut the net open to free the bird." It was able to fly away, she reported.

If you want a graphic view of the number of Snowy Owls reported to date to one of several birding resources, go to

http://www.owlpages.com/owlstuff.php?c=2011-12-05-1553

Keep in mind that this represents only those owls reported as sighted. It doesn't include owls seen but not reported, nor the hundreds of owls present but not yet seen. We have lots and lots of Snowy Owls. And December often is the big month for owl arrival.

Here is the owl before its rescue from the net. The Commers took the photo. The black markings indicate that this is a juvenile bird, hatched this past spring. Adults are almost pure white, and come south far less often than the juveniles.