A New York nature enthusiast captured stunning video of a snowy owl resting on a chunk of ice on Lake Ontario over the weekend.
Gary Cranfield heard snowy owls had been spotted near his home in Oswego, N.Y., so he and his partner decided to go in search of one.
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“There are usually sightings this time of year and historically there have been snowy owls in this place for years and we decided to check it out,” Cranfield wrote on Facebook.
Cranfield got lucky, at first spotting an owl resting on a post in the distance. After watching the bird for a while, Cranfield and his partner left to warm up.
When they returned, the owl had moved, posing on a chunk of ice bobbing in the lake.
Wanting a better look, Cranfield decided to snag video, “which turned out to be the right thing to do,” he wrote on Facebook.
“When we got home, we got on the computer and (looked at the video),” he told local media. “We thought, ‘Wow, this really came out good’ and decided to share it.”
Cranfield said the bird sat on the ice chunk for nearly 30 minutes before flying away.
Snowy owls typically spend most the year around the shores of the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay but migrate farther south towards the Canada-U.S. border during the winter in search of food. Snowy owl sightings have been reported as far south as Texas and Georgia.
Several snowy owls have been spotted calling Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park home this winter.
Cranfield’s video had been viewed more than 57,000 times at the time of publication.
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