The Unsettling Reason Why We're Seeing More Snowy Owls

Lorraine Chow Dec. 20, 2018 01:46PM EST

For birders and fans of Hedwig from the Harry Potter series, spotting a snowy owl in the wild is a special treat as these great white raptors spend most of their lives in the Arctic.

But sightings further south have become more common in North America in recent winters. As the Ottawa Citizen reported this week, sightings of the charismatic owl have soared in Eastern Ontario for the last six years.

This "irruption"—an influx of a species to areas they aren't usually found—could be a sign that there's not enough food for the snowies around their usual home.

Because of climate change, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, causing dramatic shifts to ecosystems. This warmth has caused the region to become more green.

As a result, rodents have more vegetation to graze on, thus increasing the prey base for snowy owls. This abundance in prey, a bird expert suggested to Ottawa Citizen, has resulted in successful breeding seasons for the snowy owls. But with more owls hunting in the same area, the less successful hunters end up traveling south in search of food.

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Record number of rare, snowy owls showing up in Ohio

A record number of rare snowy owls are appearing in Ohio.

According to Jen Brumfield, a naturalist with Cleveland Metroparks, a record number of the beautiful owls are appearing in northern portions of the state.

The source of this unusually huge movement of snowy owls is yet to be determined, but it is very likely tied to a successful nesting year in the Arctic, Brumfield said.

At least 10 snowy owls were recently found on the break wall near downtown Cleveland, with more showing up in outlying communities.

Sightings in Ohio are very uncommon, but naturalists say they are not unheard of in southern portions of Canada during the winter months.

The arctic birds are typically nomadic in summer months, nesting around large populations of small rodents. In winter, they take on a wide variety of prey, including geese and other birds.

Source  

Which snowy owls thrive in Saskatchewan's winters?

Date: August 31, 2016

Source: Central Ornithology Publication Office

Snowy Owls capture the imagination, but ornithologists know surprisingly little about how these birds of the far north fare during the harsh winters they endure. The researchers behind a new study in The Auk: Ornithological Advance strapped and tracked Snowy Owls wintering in Canada and found that while age and sex affect the birds' condition, most do fairly well, showing few signs of starvation and some even putting on weight over the winter months.

Female Snowy Owls are bigger than males, and Alexander Chang and Karen Wiebe of the University of Saskatchewan expected that their dominant behavior would give females access to greater food resources during the challenging winter season. Their results bore this out -- females tended to be in better condition than males, and adults, with their greater hunting experience, tended to be in better condition than juveniles.

It's widely believed that Snowy Owls that winter south of the Arctic tend to be struggling, starving birds that only move south because they can't find enough to eat at home, but few of the adults captured in the wild showed signs of starvation. Surprisingly, many of the adult birds in the study actually increased their fat stores slightly over the course of the winter. Well-insulated against the cold and not distracted by the demands of reproduction, Snowy Owls may use winter as a time to recharge and build up their reserves before returning to their breeding grounds.

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Snowy Owls' NYC Visit Reveals Migration Habits

by Shannon Hall, Staff Writer | March 11, 2015 07:07am ET

This was another banner winter for snowy owl sightings in New York City. At least seven have been spotted since December, typically in wide-open areas (like by coastlines or even near airport runways) that resemble the birds' tundra homes.

While it may sound strange to see snowy owls in New York City, the sightings aren't all that unusual, experts say. Snowy owls typically migrate as far south as Florida, but rarely are so many seen in a single winter. This year is simply a continuation of last year's great migration, when 22 owls were spotted in New York City alone.

Now, for the second year in a row, researchers are reaping the benefits of this migration, spending long, cold hours in the field, live-trapping the birds in order to later follow their movements via GPS.

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Rare bird alert: 2 more snowy owls spotted

6:25 AM EST Dec 26, 2014

Two have recently been spotted near the airport and another was seen in Plainfield.

Both were part of the New Hampshire Audubon Socity's Rare Bird Alert for Monday, Dec. 22.

The two snowy owls were seen in the vicinity of the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on Dec. 15 and at least one was still present on Dec. 17 and 18.

The best place to look for the owls is in the parking area of the Aviation Museum located on the east side of the airport on Navigator Road, or at the circle off Delta Drive near Harvey Road.

Do not park on the perimeter road on the edge of the airport, or security will ask you to leave.

Also there, an American kestral was seen Dec. 19.

A snowy owl was also reported in fields along River Road in Plainfield on Dec. 18.

Snowy owls live in the Arctic but they are visitors to New Hampshire particularly when food sources are scarce.

Last year, an irruption of snowy owls brought them south and this year, a number of them have been seen, mostly at the seacoast.

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Live webcam provides rare glimpse of Arctic snowy owls

Arctic snowy owls are the featured performers for a new webcam near Barrow, Alaska.

Science Recorder | Delila James | Friday, July 04, 2014

A high-definition camera trained on the nesting site of two Arctic snowy owls and their six chicks went live this week, giving scientists and bird enthusiasts an unprecedented look into the daily lives of these magnificent birds. The burrow is located on the coast of the Arctic Ocean near Barrow, Alaska.

“You’re not able to watch the birds 24/7, even with 24 hours of daylight,” researcher Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Montana, told The Associated Press (AP). “By having the camera, it just opens up another avenue and more periods of time we’re able to look and record.” Holt is in the 23rd year of a longterm study of the owls and their primary prey, brown lemmings.

The media division of the Annenberg Foundation provides the new webcam as the latest addition to explore.org’s Pearls of the Planet, which sponsors a variety of live wildlife cams

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Killing of snowy owls at New York's Kennedy Airport prompts suit against federal agencies by Friends of Animals advocacy group

An animal-advocacy group is suing federal agencies to make sure that the killing of snowy owls at Kennedy Airport — a practice that was stopped after being exposed by the Daily News — never resumes.

Friends of Animals has filed suit against the Agriculture Department, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Connecticut Post reported.

The lawyer representing the group said he wants to make sure the Port Authority can’t just start shooting the majestic white birds again.

“The fact that they stopped the shooting doesn’t make this a moot point,” he said.

Read more:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/lawsuit-snowy-owls-article-1.1558491#ixzz2odHnmaKR

Snowy Owls, Listed as Threat to Planes, Shot Down at JFK Airport: Source

The agency that oversees New York’s airports has added snowy owls to its no-fly list, shooting down at least two at Kennedy Airport and issuing an alert to kill any more that are spotted there, an airport source told NBC 4 New York. 

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey issued the shoot-to-kill order for the birds after one flew into a jet's engine while the plane was on a tarmac at Kennedy last week, the source said.

Port Authority workers shot two snowy owls with a shotgun on Saturday amid concerns that they would also fly into planes. A wildlife specialist who works for the Port Authority spent 45 minutes chasing one of them down, the source said.

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Snowy Owls Make Mysterious Migration

By Wynne Parry, LiveScience Contributor | December 06, 2013 03:57pm ET

The visitors from the Arctic have shown up as far south as North Carolina, on the island of Bermuda and in unusually large numbers in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes. Yesterday (Dec. 5), 15 were counted at Logan Airport in Boston.

For reasons no one understands, snowy owl sightings are spiking in eastern North America this winter.

"Maybe this is starting to shape up to be an irruption year," said Denver Holt, founder of the Owl Research Institute in Montana. 'Irruption' refers to the unpredictable migrations the birds make.

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Cruelty of bird sanctuary owner caught kicking and punching his owls

As the owner of a respected bird sanctuary, William MacKenzie displayed his snowy owls and hawks at country shows and appeared on the BBC to discuss his devotion to his birds.

But when out of public view – or at least when he thought he was – the 68-year-old used a brutal method to rule his roost.

After being filmed by neighbours kicking and punching birds he kept in his garden, MacKenzie was this week banned from keeping animals for life.

And despite claiming that his birds were ‘like my children’, he was told by a magistrate that he had caused them fear and distress.

MacKenzie kept 26 birds including a snowy owl, African spotted eagle owl and a Harris hawk, at his home in Shrewsbury.

Over a two-year period, horrified neighbours filmed him abusing and tormenting the birds which he kept on perches and in cramped cages in his back garden.

He was once seen slapping a barn owl in the face before kicking it into a corner of the garden.

He was also filmed hitting and kicking an eagle owl and holding a barn owl by its wing before hurling it to the ground.

In another clip, MacKenzie can be seen using his lawnmower to scare the birds by revving it close to a stack of cages.

Two distressed barn owls desperately flap their wings as the blades of the mower come within inches of their perches.

See photos, watch video and read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202588/Shocking-footage-shows-cruel-bird-sanctuary-owner-punching-kicking-tethered-owls.html#ixzz26oxliSHC