Snowy Owls are here!

Every few years we're lucky in the northwestern states, and snowy owls move down to spend the winter.  There's been lots of discussion on the why of this ~ they truly are a bird of the far north.  A move south is called an 'irruption' and it usually comprises young, darker birds.   These birds probably don't have established territory up north which makes them more likely to be vagrants, and a crash in the lemming population (their favorite food) will force them to more favorable hunting grounds.
In early November of this year,  word was out that snowy owls were being sighted on the north Washington coast.  It wasn't long before reports were coming in from southern Washington, and now there are snowy owls being seen all along the Oregon coast and inland.  One year a young snowy spent the winter at the Salem airport.
They seek open, grassy fields in order to hunt mice.  What you'll see is a short, squat shape on the edge of an open field.  If it is a young bird, they'll be mottled brownish, but still mainly white.  If they're adults, they're the purist white imaginable.  They sit motionless for hours, watching for movement in the field, then in utter silence, they swoop out and down, taking their prey in powerful dark talons.
One year not too long ago, there were several snowy owls at Fort Stevens State Park, on the very northwest tip of Oregon.  They were easily visible from the viewpoint parking lot.  Made me nervous~ they're great targets: big, white and immobile.  I don't think any owls were shot.    But this year, one very adventurous and off-the-track snowy owl made it to Hawaii, only to be shot there.   My god, what are people thinking.
Anyway, at Fort Stevens the day I was there, there was also a huge flock of shorebirds- sandpipers-resting in a sandy swale really close to a perched snowy owl.  Didn't they know?  They seemed quite relaxed about the whole thing until the owl swooped from his snag perch and almost casually flew among the now-panicked sandpipers.  They flew up and circled desperately, but the owl just  extended one powerful foot, and there was dinner.   Again, hard to watch, but that how nature does it.  The owl is trying to earn a living, like the rest of us. 
The online birders' email group is reporting a snowy owl very near here.  Wish me luck, I'm going to try for it.