[va-richmond-general] this was in the NYT today on Snowy Owls

  • From: "Kathleen Kreutzer" <k-kreutzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'Richmond Birders'" <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 19:23:25 -0500

 <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.html> U.S.

Influx of Snowy Owls Thrills and Baffles Birders

By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/john_schwartz/
index.html> JOHN SCHWARTZ     JAN. 31, 2014

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/02/01/us/01-SNOWY-1/01-SNOWY-1-master675
.jpg

Norman Smith, who runs the Snowy Owl Project for Mass Audubon, released a
female snowy owl on a beach in Duxbury, Mass. Gretchen Ertl for The New York
Times

 

DUXBURY, Mass. - The snowy owl seemed almost complacent, showing the
confidence of a top predator whose bright yellow eyes suggested she might be
sizing you up as a weaker combatant - or perhaps a large snack.

She had been where no bird should safely be - Logan International Airport in
Boston - and now, regal and imposing even in brief captivity, she
represented the latest of her kind to arrive in a remarkable and growing
winter's wandering to the Lower 48.

Not only is the Boston area seeing the largest number of snowy owls ever
recorded, they are popping up in territory
<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/gotsnowies2013/> far from their usual
habitat near the Arctic Circle. Ecstatic bird watchers have spotted them
<http://blog.aba.org/2013/12/the-2013-snowy-owl-invasion-its-getting-crazier
-by-the-minute.html> perched atop the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and in
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/snowy-owl-hit-by-bus-in-downtown-dc/201
4/01/30/05945616-89c2-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html> Washington (where
one made headlines for being struck by a bus) , in
<http://www.katv.com/story/24258002/birders-get-glimpse-of-rare-snowy-owl-in
-little-rock> Little Rock, Ark., and
<http://cindymcintyre.wordpress.com/tag/little-talbot-island/> northern
Florida - even in
<http://bernews.com/2013/11/snowy-owl-spotted-on-bermuda-roof/> Bermuda.

"This year's been bizarre," said
<http://www.danhaas.com/index/AABIRDCLUB/Info.html> Dan Haas, a birder in
Maryland. "The numbers have been unprecedented. Historic."

No one is sure why so many snowies are showing up in so many places -
whether it can be attributed to more food in their Arctic habitats than
usual, or climate change at the top of the world. "Think about the canary in
the coal mine," said Henry Tepper, the president of Mass Audubon, "you think
about the snowy owl in the Arctic."

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/02/01/us/01-SNOWY-2/01-SNOWY-2-articleLa
rge.jpg

Launch media viewer

Patrick Castleberry, left, took photos of a snowy owl at Little Talbot
Island State Park in Jacksonville, Fla. The very rare sighting of the owl in
the area drew birders from miles around. 

 

The big birds known as  <http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/id>
Bubo scandiacus reach a height of 20 to 27 inches and have a wingspan of 54
to 66 inches. They can live more than 30 years in captivity, and have
feathers that can range from mottled brown and white to pure white. They
have their own movie star -
<http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/File:Harry_Potter_and_Hedwig.jpg> Harry
Potter's Hedwig - and <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/o-rly> Internet meme,
the image of a snowy asking the impertinent question "O RLY?" as in "Oh,
really?"

"It's such a charismatic bird," said David Sibley, the author and
illustrator of a series of  <http://www.sibleyguides.com/> birding guides.

Sighting one, especially in an unexpected place, can be thrilling for
birders. Georgeta Pourchot was apparently the first person to identify the
Florida owl. She and her husband, Eric, were driving in late December from
their home in Virginia through Florida on their Christmas vacation when she
suggested they pull off at Little Talbot Island, near Jacksonville, to look
for unusual birds:  <http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snow_bunting/id>
snow buntings, she thought, or a
<http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Long-billed_Curlew/id> long-billed
curlew.

Ms. Pourchot said as birders, she and her husband are "just beginners." They
scanned two beaches without seeing anything interesting. They encountered a
park ranger, who suggested they look a little farther: "When you get to the
other side of that 'Do Not Enter' sign, there's a good view over there."

So they drove past the sign and parked. And as she got out of the car, Ms.
Pourchot told her husband, "Babe, I think we have a snowy owl here!"

"You're kidding," he replied, but acknowledged that while they might have
been looking for the avian equivalent of a zebra, they had happened on a
unicorn.

On Dec. 27, she posted her report to  <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>
ebird, an online tracking system created by Cornell University's department
of ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The next day, members of
the local Audubon chapter were doing their annual Christmas bird count when
word spread, said Kevin E. Dailey, the leader of one team. The news was so
exciting that volunteers left their assigned zones in search of the truly
rare bird. "That's kind of heresy to leave your count circle area," he said.

Some people are less happy to encounter snowy owls - particularly, the
managers of airports that the birds are drawn to. With wide open spaces and
short grass, "the airports, to them, look more like the Arctic tundra than
anything else," said Norman Smith, who runs the
<http://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/blue-hills-tra
ilside-museum/snowy-owl-project> Snowy Owl Project for Mass Audubon. Birds
at airports, however, pose a threat to planes, not to mention to themselves.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/nyregion/snowy-owls-to-be-trapped-instead
-of-shot-at-new-york-area-airports.html?_r=0> took heated criticism in
December when it shot three snowy owls. Since then, the authority has tried
trapping the birds, with limited success, and harassing them away from the
airport by shooting off fireworks, said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the
Port Authority.

Mr. Smith had trapped the female owl at Logan one recent morning and had
driven her here to the beach at Duxbury, about 40 miles southeast, for
release into the wild, with hopes that she would continue heading south,
away from the airport. In most years, Mr. Smith makes a trip from Logan to
Duxbury or other release sites a half-dozen times. This year, however, the
number has climbed above 75. "And the season is only half over," he said.

When he released his grip on the owl's legs, the bird flapped her broad
wings and headed to the southwest, toward a small cluster of homes.
Suddenly, another snowy owl sailed down from the houses and met the newcomer
in midair, their talons locking. An aerial territorial skirmish followed as
the two wheeled overhead, with the newcomer finally heading off to the west.

Ornithologists and bird watchers are not sure why the birds have come so far
and in such great numbers this year. In decades of study, Mr. Smith said,
"what I've learned is we know very little about this bird." He suggests that
the large population is the result of a bonanza of lemmings and other small
rodents that snowy owls feed on, perhaps a consequence of the milder Arctic
weather. That led to larger population of hatchlings that must spread
farther and farther out to find territory of their own.

The lemming hypothesis does not satisfy Kevin J. McGowan, an ornithologist
at Cornell. He noted that tiny transmitters placed on the owls have shown
some of the birds do a surprising thing in winter: Instead of flying to the
more temperate south, they fly farther north and scout the Arctic ice pack
for pools of open water populated by sea ducks and other waterfowl.

Climate change, which has been
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html?pagewanted=all>
thawing Arctic ice so actively that
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/world/europe/russia-preparing-patrols-of-
arctic-shipping-lanes.html> new shipping routes are opening in the far
north, could have disrupted the habitat, Professor McGowan speculated. "That
has to be one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. That's going
to be one of the first places that falls apart when there is warming in the
atmosphere," he said. This may have driven more of them south instead of
north. A big shift in bird movement one year might just be a freak event, he
said, or potentially "it's the beginning of a pattern."

Whatever the reason for their abundance, the snowy visitors have brought
attention beyond the usual core group of birders, said Mr. Sibley, the guide
author. Mr. Sibley, who has released a print of one of his snowy owl
illustrations to raise money for research, said that while it is good to see
such excitement, "it would be great if that kind of attention could extend
to less flashy birds, like the
<http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-cockaded_Woodpecker/id> red cockaded
woodpecker or the  <http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Henslows_Sparrow/id>
Henslow's sparrow."

 

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