Video taken on 1/20/18 by Gary Cranfield.

Telegraph:

Seasoned wildlife photographers may have some unlikely competition in the form of a traffic camera when it comes to this year’s awards season.

CCTV captured this stunning image of a curious snowy owl in flight above a motorway in Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec.

The traffic camera, which belongs to the Transport Quebec, captured several images of the white and black-spotted bird on January 3.

Quebec transport minister Robert Poëti tweeted photos of the owl with the caption [translated]: “Magnificent snowy owl picked up by surveillance cameras of the road network on the A-40 in the West of MTL”.

In a Facebook post he added: “An impressive solo was captured in full flight by the surveillance cameras of the road network on highway 40 … in the west of the island of Montreal.

(photo: Rick Remington)

In Chicago, this winter, a Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) took a go at a Snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). A local birder named Rick Remington got some great photos and described the action.

North American Birding:

[The owl] would do a somersault just as the Peregrine approached and flash its nasty talons in an attempt to scare off the Falcon. The battle lasted for 5 full minutes before the Falcon headed off in another direction and the Snowy Owl flew down to the rocks by the lake. It was a surprisingly violent and noisy encounter, with both birds shrieking loudly and the owl extending its giant wings to intimidate the smaller falcon. I fully expected this to end badly for the owl based on what I was watching. In spite of the obvious mismatch, the Snowy Owl managed to hold its own and escape unscathed.

Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus)

John Hinderaker, of Power-Line, is amused by the MSM’s ecological double standard. Changes of species’ ranges interpretable as evidence of the media’s beloved catastrophism are gleefully noted, but new appearances of sub-arctic species, like the Snowy Owl, in the Southland are just a curiosity devoid of any implications.