Tracking the Snowy Owl Migration in Real Time

[MULTIZ321]

Tracking the Snowy Owl Migration in Real Time - by Jeffery Delviscio/ News/ The Lede/ The New York Times.com

"Snowy owls are touching down in Maryland. They’ve been spotted in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.

In what experts say is the largest migration south in two decades, the large predators with blizzardlike plumage that normally reside in the Arctic have been showing up across the eastern United States and beyond. There’s even a report of a possible sighting in Bermuda.

To help quantify this year’s migration, eBird, a project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, recently published a live tracker mapping sightings. The site harnesses the power of crowdsourcing, tapping amateur bird-watchers and biologists alike, to create real-time reports, called “bits.”..."

- Vernon Ogrodnek/The Press of Atlantic City, via Associated Press
A snowy owl at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Atlantic City, N.J., on Dec. 4, 2013.

Richard

 

[Timeshare Von]

They have also been reported here in Wisconsin, including the Milwaukee area near Lake Michigan.

 

[Denise]

The owl has also been seen in lower, slower Delaware within the last few weeks. Very rare.

 

[Timeshare Von]

The owl has also been seen in lower, slower Delaware within the last few weeks. Very rare.

If folks check out the map that is included in the article posted, you'll see they are actually as far south as the Carolinas.

The birder group collecting sightings here in Wisconsin have reported ~116 individual snowy owls in the state. I am hoping to get out this week at a couple of sighting locations in an attempt to see & photograph one!

 

["Roger"]

I've seen one so far (Wisconsin), but am hoping for more (and better) sightings to come. (The one I saw was way out on the ice. Even with binoculars, it wasn't the greatest sighting.)

Most discouraging, about two hours after I went out of my way to take an alternative route home to go past a particular open stretch of farmland - just on the off chance that one might be there - a neighbor doing the same thing had one fly right in front of her windshield. Timing is everything.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Well after two trips out to see and hopefully photograph a snowy owl (or two), I finally had my opportunity today at the Waukesha (Wisconsin) Airport.

Today's weather was very overcast, with high winds. Viewing through binoculars was the best way to go, but I was able to get a couple of photos albeit rather poor quality images due to the distance I had to shoot from and the beastly slow lens I have.

Here are a couple of the better photos . . . again, not very good but I'm still happy to share!

Below is the original photograph that the above image was cropped from:

E510; 300mm, f/6.3 @ 1/250sec, ISO100

Here it is on another hanger, looking back towards me

I was able to get a couple of shots of it, as it flew away

 

[Timeshare Von]

I've seen one so far (Wisconsin), but am hoping for more (and better) sightings to come. (The one I saw was way out on the ice. Even with binoculars, it wasn't the greatest sighting.)

Most discouraging, about two hours after I went out of my way to take an alternative route home to go past a particular open stretch of farmland - just on the off chance that one might be there - a neighbor doing the same thing had one fly right in front of her windshield. Timing is everything.

I'm not sure where you went searching, but last week I went up to the area near Freedom, WI that has had a number of sightings . . . as well as down to the area east of Janesville off Hwy14. Unfortunately, both trips were a bust for me, although there had been sightings on the same days I had visited.

I hope to get a better opportunity for photos once the sun returns!

 

[MULTIZ321]

A Bird Flies South, And It's News - by John Schwartz/ U.S./ The New York Times.com

"She had been where no bird should safely be — Logan International Airport in Boston — and now, regal and imposing 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 far from their usual habitat near the Arctic Circle. Ecstatic bird watchers have spotted them perched atop the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and in Washington (where one made headlines for being struck by a bus), in Little Rock, Ark., and northern Florida — even in Bermuda..."

Norman Smith releasing a snowy owl in Duxbury, Mass., that had recently been captured at Logan airport in Boston. Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times


Richard

 

[Timeshare Von]

I'm glad they were able to capture and relocate that bird.

 

["Roger"]

The ultimate bad hair day ...

Here is a not so pretty picture of a rescued snowy owl. The bird flew head first into a manure pile and its wings got so coated it could not fly. It was taken to a nature center, bathed (picture), dried, and released (looking much better by then, I presume).

 

[pedro47]

I'm glad they were able to capture and relocate that bird.

Ditto...What a beautiful animal.

 

[Timeshare Von]

My sister just shared this story with me about a snowy owl that was hit by a DC Metro bus recently. I sure hope it has a full recovery!

 

[nightnurse613]

While it is a joy to actually see such a magnificent creature; I am very concerned why the sudden large shift in migration. It wouldn't be the first time the animals were trying to tell us something. I just read an article that the annual migration of the monarch butterflies from Mexico have been severely affected by reduced numbers. Frankly, I don't blame them - it's a long trip for some pine trees!

 

[Timeshare Von]

While it is a joy to actually see such a magnificent creature; I am very concerned why the sudden large shift in migration. It wouldn't be the first time the animals were trying to tell us something. I just read an article that the annual migration of the monarch butterflies from Mexico have been severely affected by reduced numbers. Frankly, I don't blame them - it's a long trip for some pine trees!

In the case of the snowy owls, I believe it is like most other predator species dependent on food sources. Reports are that they've seen extraordinary breeding the past year or two, while lemmings (their preferred food supply) are down. Many of the birds found deep into the lower 48 of the US are young birds, which would give support to the theory that younger birds must travel further (and further) to find their own hunting territories in the winter. Older, more established birds have their own so they are able to stay relatively put at home.

It is not unlike the ebb & flow in Denali National Park. One year the snowshoe hares' population is UP . . . which gives rise to the food source for lynx. In the years that their predators eat well, the hares' numbers drop in subsequent years, creating hardship later for their predators. With predator numbers down, the hares' enjoy another boom breeding cycle.