This afternoon, I received a report that a juvenile Snowy Owl had been
struck by a plane at National Airport. It was taken to a local
rehabilitator but was badly injured and could not be saved. I do not know
if this owl was the same bird reported in South Arlington on November 29.
Airports are very dangerous places for Snowy Owls, and both the owls and
the planes would be safer if the owls went to other locations.
I have been in touch with Scott Weidensaul a couple of times about the
Arlington Snowy Owl, including this afternoon. Two weeks ago, he posted the
following on the Project SNOWstorm website about the movements of the
species this autumn. He was responding to a post from a rehabber:
"Thanks for the update on your end, Jerry -- we know you've been busy. We
want to thank you and the other rehabbers in the region who have been
working with state agencies and SNOWstorm to have DOA snowies and those
that didn't make it necropsied and tested for toxins, pathogens, etc. As
you say, this appears to be a very focused movement of snowies into the
western Great Lakes and Plains -- thin birds have been reported from
Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Dave Evans at Duluth, who has
been studying snowies for years, and Tom Erdman at the Ritcher Museum in
WI, have both noted that very early flights like we saw last month are
usually thin birds. Unlike the big irruptions we've seen in recent years,
which seem to be generated by abundant breeding seasons producing a lot of
fat, young birds, this appears to be the kind of "classic" irruption seen
among great grays and hawk owls, driven by hunger. Interestingly, Norman
Smith in Massachusetts has moved a number of snowies from Logan Airport in
recent weeks, and says that all thus far have been fat, healthy juveniles.
As JF points out in this blog post, we don't really know what's going on in
most of the Arctic - some areas may have lemming booms, others may have
prey crashes. We're undoubtedly seeing snowies from different areas, and
coming from starkly different circumstances, this winter."
Best,
Bill Young
Arlington, VA
