“I knew it was an owl, but I never dreamed of it being a snowy owl,” Maybin said. After all, who would think they’d see an arctic predator thousands of miles south of its native range? And the auto mechanic surely never imagined the owl in his yard would put the birding world all atwitter.
“I didn’t know that it was a big thing,” Maybin said. “The first five (bird-watchers) that came, the lady who I think is the head of their group, she told me, ‘Do you care if I tell people?’ I said, ‘No, you go right ahead.’ I had no idea how many would show up.”
By Monday, at least 300 birders from as far away as South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee had descended on Maybin’s farm in the upper French Broad River valley to glimpse the rare owl, the first known sighting of a snowy owl in Western North Carolina in modern history.
“I just can’t believe one bird could draw that much attention,” Maybin said.
They do when they’re Harry Potter’s charismatic pet in the movies, and when few people have ever laid eyes on one in real life. Reports of the iconic owl lit up the birder
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