Photos by Peggy Barringer

ALBION – Peggy Barringer has seen numerous photos of Snowy Owls posted on Facebook, Orleans Hub and other media outlets for the past month. She felt envious and wanted to see one with her own eyes.

She did a funny spoof of a Snowy Owl sighting that was featured on the Hub on Jan. 6.

Yesterday, she finally saw the owl in person while in Batavia. The owl was near the Genesee County Airport on Saile Drive. Barringer snapped a few photos. She says she didn’t have her good camera, with the long lens, but these are pretty good.

Another Hub reader, Art Graton, sent in this picture of a Snowy Owl he took on Jan. 14. The owl is by Barber Road in East Shelby.

ALBION – Orleans Hub has published several photos of Snowy Owls in Orleans County in recent weeks with the majestic creatures spotted in Barre, Lyndonville and Kendall.

One of the owls has been hanging around Albion the past few days. Jaime Brennan shared this picture taken on Lattin Road. Her husband ventured into the corn field to get a photo of the owl.

I’m glad he got close. The owls typically nest in the Artic tundra and winter in Canada. Bird watchers believe we are having a historic year with the presence of so many Snowy Owls in the U.S.

LYNDONVILLE – Dena Scribner took these pictures today of ice floating on Johnson Creek in Lyndonville. The ice is jammed in spots along the creek. The ice is on the move after a big thaw following very cold temperatures the previous week.

The bottom photo is taken from the Blood Road Bridge.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Saturday’s warm temperatures, at about 50 degrees, wiped out some of the snow and ice that built up in the previous week.

There was still a layer of ice at the bottom of the canal. I took this photo after descending the breakwall in front of the Brown Street bridge in Albion.

I was out for a jog along the muddy Erie Canal Towpath and snapped a few photos with my SmartPhone. (This is a marvelous invention, by the way.)

Sandy Creek runs under the canal near Community Action. This is a well-known site for those of us who like to get out and use the Towpath. Normally the water is serene and slow-moving, but yesterday the creek had an angry attitude.

This photo was taken from the top of a culvert by the canal, looking north.

I seldom venture off the Towpath to explore near the creek, but I liked the paths in the woods with the fading snow.

ALBION – The warmup today melted snow and gave off a morning mist along the Erie Canal. Peggy Barringer took these photos west of the Main Street bridge in Albion. Much of Western New York is under a flood watch due to the snow melt. Orleans County is not on that list.

CARLTON – Peggy Barringer of Albion stopped by Point Breeze in Carlton and Lomond Shores in Kendall on Thursday and captured images of the ice formations by the lake.

After many days of below-freezing temperatures it looks like we have some mini-glaciers down at the Point.

The photo above shows the breakwall and pier coated in snow and ice.

Some big hunks of ice have settled in at the Point.

The Pier at Point Breeze

Icicles find a place to hang.

At Lomond Shores, icicles look like Jaws coming out of the water.

KENDALL – The sub-zero temperatures in recent days did not scare off the Snowy Owls that have been creating a stir the past month with multiple sightings in Orleans County and other spots in Western New York.

Vince Flow took this picture this morning near Lake Ontario in Kendall. Flow has a zoom lens and he has taken several photos of the owls in recent weeks. He said they like the wide open country in Kendall.

The owls typically nest in the Artic tundra and winter in Canada. Bird watchers believe we are having a historic year with the presence of so many Snowy Owls in the U.S. The owls have migrated into the U.S. in search of food. About 90 percent of their diet is the small rodent lemmings, but the owls also eat mice, voles, ducks, hares and fish.

Photo by Mike Beach

Mike Beach sent this photo of the Medina Waterfalls in the snow-covered Oak Orchard gorge. The Oak Orchard Creek runs under the Erie Canal just west of the Horan Road canal bridge. The creek then drops in the waterfalls. Beach took this photo from the canal towpath.

Beach, an Albion resident, stops often to look at the waterfalls. Orleans Hub on Nov. 11 used a video that Beach took in the fall of kayakers going over the waterfalls. Click here to see that.

Photo by Tom Rivers – This photo was taken in the summer from the top of lighthouse at Oak Orchard Harbor. It shows a port that hasn’t been dredged in 10 years.

POINT BREEZE – One of Orleans County’s prime assets has gradually been filling with sediment, threatening to make it impassable for bigger boats. A clogged channel would hurt the county’s fishing and tourism industries.

Finally, this year the Oak Orchard Harbor is scheduled to be dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is one of seven on the south shore of Lake Ontario that is expected to be dredged in 2014.

The Orleans County Legislature last week expressed its formal support for the projects, passing a resolution that was sent to federal officials working on the dredging.

The Oak Orchard Harbor is critical to Orleans County’s $12 million annual fishing industry. The harbor hasn’t been dredged since 2004, and some boats have been grounded in shallow parts of the channel.

County officials have been pressing for several years for federal funds to be released to remove sediment from the harbor.

U.S. Rep. Chris Collins in April announced funding was designated to dredge Oak Orchard, Olcott and Wilson harbors in 2014. The harbors are important for recreational and economic reasons, he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing in 2014 to work on those three harbors, plus sites at Rochester, Irondequoit Bay, Little Sodus Bay and Oswego.

According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Oak Orchard Harbor in the town of Carlton was last dredged in 2004 when 10,700 cubic yards of material was removed. This harbor should be dredged every three to five years. In order to maintain adequate channel depth, 18,000 cubic yards of dredging will be required. The total sediment backlog is estimated at approximately 35,000 cubic yards.

Collins has co-sponsored the Realize America’s Maritime Promise Act or RAMP Act (H.R. 335), which would help ensure the funding is in place for routine maintenance dredging.

Vince Flow of Kendall captured this closeup of a Snowy Owl in Kendall on Christmas. Three days later he took another picture of the majestic creature (below).

There have been numerous Snowy Owl sightings in Western New York in December, including several in Orleans County. The owls typically aren’t seen in the United States. Their presence this winter has a created a stir, especially among bird watchers.

Patty Longrod of Kendall took a picture of a Snowy Owl on West Kendall Road in early December. She said it was in a field owned by Kludt Brothers Farm.

“It was an amazing sight to see sitting out in the field and luckily I had my camera in my purse,” Longrod wrote in an email. “It flew off as I approached and I was amazed by how big it really was.”

Outside of Kendall, Deanna Baker took this one of a Snowy Owl in Lyndonville on Dec. 29. It’s on top of a telephone pole on Route 63 , near Rt. 18.

(If you get any good photos of a Snowy Owl, send it to us at news@orleanshub.com. Please note the day you took it and the location.)

Kelly Dudley of Barre took this photo of a Snowy Owl on Dec. 30 down the road from her house.

Local bird watchers have been in their glory the past month with Snowy Owl sightings all over Western New York, including in Orleans County.

The owl has a wingspan of five feet. It nests in the Arctic tundra and winters south through Canada. Usually there aren’t too many sightings in the United States, but there have been many so far this winter.

Someone also sent us a picture of the owl on top of a telephone pole on Route 63, near Route 18, just north of the village of Lyndonville.

(If you get any good photos of this owl, send them to us at news@orleanshub.com.)

Photo by Tom Rivers

GAINES – A field of hay bales are coated with snow on Route 279, just a little north of Route 104 late this afternoon.

Orleans Hub readers may recall a photo from about three months ago of the same field of hay bales.

I took this picture on Oct. 6, and it’s featured in the 2014 Orleans Hub calendar that’s available at the Lake Country Pennysaver, 170 North Main St. in Albion, as well as two other locations: Bindings Bookstore at 28 West Bank St., Albion and Della’s Chocolates at 512 North Main St., Medina.

Many Orleans Hub readers have posted photos from the storm on our Facebook page or emailed them directly to us.

I’ve picked some of my favorite submissions. Thank you for sending all of them, including those I didn’t include in this story.

Gary Tarr of Albion took this photo of a shopping cart coated in ice.

Jessica Harris of Albion took this picture in her back yard. “I opened my back window and snapped away.”

Kristina Martin of Holley captured an image of logs covered in snow and ice.

Rindie Kwiatkowski of Waterport sent in this photo of her son Brandon Blount and his dog Ellen. The tree split in pieces. “It sounded like a bomb going off when this one went,” she said.

Kwiatkowski said the ice-covered berries “was just the most beautiful thing I have ever seen ….. sad but pretty.” Her father, the late Don Cook, was a long-time local photographer who worked for years at the Medina Journal-Register.

Charity Garrow took this picture of a bent over tree on North Avenue in Medina.

Heather Beach Smith of Medina took this picture of the Erie Canal lift bridge on Route 63 in Medina.

Dawn Gardner of Kendall took this photo near the Pembroke exit of the Thruway.

Dena Bradshaw-Scribner took this one of Johnson Creek’s raging waters at the Lyndonville Dam. Many of the local creeks and streams threatened to flood after the storm.

Photos by Tom Rivers – Fog has descended on the Canal Basin in Medina, nearly obscuring the Glenwood Avenue canal bridge.

MEDINA – I drove from Medina to Albion at around 12:30 this afternoon and many prominent landmarks seemed to have vanished from the landscape.

Big grain facilities and barns are shrouded by the fog that has rolled in. Canal bridges are hard to see, including the Horan Road bridge in Medina.

The Canal Basin trees seem to pop out more with all the white in the sky.

The canal has been drained, and an unfortunate sight at the bottom is often orphaned bicycles and shopping carts.