Snowy Owl!

Usually when I'm driving at night and I see some sort of owl fly up from the side of the road, by the time my brain registers what it was and to stop and look at it, I've already driven past. Tonight though, as I drove home from Book Club(Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle-loved it!) a large white bird flew over the road and landed just ahead of me. Since it was almost 10:30 and, since I was driving home I was on a back road, I stopped my car and turned it slightly so the headlights shone where I estimated it had landed. Several seconds went by and I didn't see anything. I was about to drive away when out from behind a tree trunk appears a large, white owl. We gaze at each other for 10-15 seconds, then he spreads his very large wings and flies into the woods across the street. Wow! I am really excited-we hear owls quite often where we live but I've never had a good look at one! I'm pretty sure its a Snowy, but I rush home and use the visual search feature at whatbird.com (clicked on CT, owl shape, primary color: white) and it told me it could have been a Snowy or Barn Owl. Definitely the Snowy. Here is a picture of what he looked like:

photographs courtesy Philip Greenspun
You can learn more about this bird here.
(I wrote the interesting facts on this page-whatbird is my part-time job!)