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Raymond , Burnaby, BC

Hi HWW,

We live in the Kensington area in Burnaby BC. Last month, right after the first snow has melted, it was 9:30 pm when I opened our kitchen door as usual trying to dump some garbage into the bin at our backyard, I was shocked by my glimpse when I tried to put on my shoes, I felt that someone was climbing up from the railing of our sundeck. When I turned back to the railing, a pair of big eyes were staring at me, first thing came to my mind was "Home invasion" ?

But when I looked more clearly, a big bird was standing motionless on the railing. She has a huge body, at least 24-28 inches tall. I tried to stand still because I wanted to find out what is that creature exactly, so, I moved towards her in dead slow pace until my body triggered the sensor light to turn on. I thought I made a mistake that I should have turned the sensor light off before doing so. But to my huge surprise, that the light not even though had the power to scare her at all, on the contrary, she just kept standing there eventhough I was face to face with her within a distance of 5 feet maximum.

She has a pair of beautiful eyes, her body is light grey in color with dark spot all over. This was the first time so far that I can have a chance to see such a beautiful bird. She is so calm, she just stayed there even I went back to the house & walked out again with my wife & a big flash light in our hands. She was still standing there even the strong flashlight was aiming on her face. When I tried to get a bit closer to her, she flew to the big tree in my neighbour's backyard. And she just kept on standing there for hours.

I tried to take a picture of her, yet she was beyond the zoom range of my pocket size camera. I regret that I did not take my given chance to take a picture of her, but when I looked back to that precious moment of our encounter, I felt a lot better, because that 10 to 15 minutes of gathering will never fade out from my mind for the rest of my life.

Finally, I began to find out that she should be a female snowy owl after seeing information from your website.

Thank you for helping me to discover my precious encounter with such a beautiful creature.

Raymond
Burnaby, British Columbia