We went out to the sand dunes yesterday to see if "Snowy" was still out there as they should have gone North by now. Apparently they are just too happy here to leave, as we found a different owl. He is considerably larger and has more and darker brown markings on his body, and just as beautiful. Using a technique for getting up closer to birds (thank you Bobo Bird), I was able to move in to a fairly comfortable range for some shots. He stared me down for a while and finally took off.