An Unexpected Baby Boom Is Bringing Snowy Owls South This Winter

Since late October, one thing sudden has been occurring: Snowy Owls have been displaying up in every single place. They’ve appeared throughout the Canadian prairies and Maritimes and within the Nice Lakes area, significantly round Ontario, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Sightings have quickly elevated all through November and December, with the putting white raptors reported in areas the place they’ve been largely or fully absent in recent times, together with British Columbia, Washington, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky, and South Dakota.  

Their look in numbers has taken Snowy Owl experts by surprise. “We anticipated it was going to be a boring winter,” says Scott Weidensaul, naturalist and co-founder of Challenge SNOWstorm, a analysis undertaking targeted on the species. Weidensaul and his group hadn’t heard the experiences of great breeding that will sometimes precede a serious southward irruption of owls. However “the Canadian Arctic is a giant place,” he says. “There should have been a big breeding occasion up there, as a result of there’s numerous child owls coming south this fall.”

Although Snowy Owls can nonetheless catch specialists off-guard, scientific information of the species has come a good distance previously decade. That’s thanks largely to Challenge SNOWstorm (whose identify refers to SNOW, the banding code scientists use for the species). Over the previous decade, Weidensaul and his colleagues have shaken up typical knowledge about Snowy Owl populations and actions, utilizing these insights to assist form conservation efforts for the species.

The undertaking arose from an irruption occasion way more intense than the one taking part in out now. Within the winter of 2013-2014, Snowy Owls flooded into the Northeast and the Nice Lakes area in numbers seemingly not seen in a century, showing as far south as Florida and Bermuda. Weidensaul and different owl fans realized that they had a uncommon alternative to check the birds near residence. “None of us are going to reside lengthy sufficient to see one thing like this once more,” Weidensaul remembers a pal telling him. “We determined to get as a lot data from that large irruption as we may.”

They shortly arrange Project SNOWstorm, recruited volunteers, and raised sufficient funding to outfit 22 birds with solar-powered transmitters. Since then, the nonprofit has tracked greater than 115 birds in 17 states, producing what the group believes is the world’s largest dataset on native and migration actions of Snowy Owls.

The researchers additionally collect well being knowledge once they seize birds for tagging, and what they’ve discovered has helped to overturn a longstanding myth about what’s behind Snowy irruptions. “For a lot of, a few years, individuals assumed that what drove these owls south was starvation, that these had been ravenous owls that couldn’t discover something to eat within the Arctic,” Weidensaul says. In reality, influxes consist primarily of wholesome, younger Snowy Owls born the earlier summer time within the Arctic—not a response to meals shortages, however a results of owl child booms fueled by bountiful prey within the type of lemmings.  

These younger birds may come south in search of an appropriate place to reside out their first winter whereas older, extra dominant people occupy prime Arctic habitat, says Rebecca McCabe, analysis biologist at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and a member of the Worldwide Snowy Owl Working Group (ISOWG), each of which collaborate carefully with Challenge SNOWstorm. Not all birds that come south are younger, although; sure adults come south yearly, and others each different yr. “We see numerous variation amongst people,” McCabe says.

The group’s findings have additionally raised conservation considerations in regards to the species. Snowy Owls are dealing with rising and important dangers from local weather change, rodenticides, mercury poisoning, avian influenza, and car strikes. “Something that we will do to guard these birds and their breeding grounds, and enhance their year-to-year breeding success, goes to be necessary,” Weidensaul mentioned.

That’s very true as a result of, as Challenge SNOWstorm’s knowledge have helped to point out, there are far fewer Snowy Owls than was beforehand thought. In 2004, scientists estimated the worldwide inhabitants might be as excessive as 290,000 owls. Satellite tv for pc monitoring, by Challenge SNOWstorm and different teams, helped refine that quantity by displaying simply how nomadic this species might be. “We didn’t understand that the snowy owls which can be breeding in central Canada one yr could also be in Greenland the following yr,” Weidensaul says. A global status assessment of the inhabitants, launched in 2025 by the ISOWG with important assist from Challenge SNOWstorm, places the inhabitants between 14,000 and 28,000 breeding-age adults.

Serving to to guard the birds by sharing their findings with the general public and choice makers is a giant a part of the SNOWstorm group’s work, Weidensaul says. Their findings have proven useful at airports, for instance, the place Snowy Owls usually spend the winter, posing a danger for the birds and for airplane passengers.

The monitoring knowledge are additionally pointing the group towards areas of the Arctic which can be particularly necessary for the owls and may have safety. Earlier this yr, Challenge SNOWstorm started analyzing summer time motion knowledge with the purpose of predicting the place Snowy Owls select to nest year-to-year within the Canadian Arctic. The evaluation has already recognized locations the place unusually massive numbers of the birds congregate in summer time. “That is our glimpse into that world, and to attempt to higher perceive what these owls want on this actually necessary a part of their vary.” 

As for his or her wintering areas, Challenge SNOWstorm shall be watching the place their owls with transmitters may seem over the following few months. The birds noticed within the south are largely juveniles to this point; adults sometimes observe later. Snowy Owls are generalists within the winter, consuming small mammals like muskrats and rabbits, and water birds like loons, geese, and grebes, so that they’re prone to present up in tundra-like farm fields or by our bodies of water. Some birds hunker down in a wintering space, whereas others transfer round, significantly as they prepared for spring migration. Final yr, Challenge SNOWstorm tracked Snowy Owls heading again to the Arctic when milder climate hit in March, however a few owls had been in Ontario and Quebec as late as Might.

Wherever Snowies present up, it’s necessary for birders and photographers to provide them area and take warning to not disturb them, specialists say. If an owl stares at you, bobs its head repeatedly, or in any other case responds to your presence, you’re too shut and may instantly give it more room.

In any case, Snowy Owls face sufficient threats already, and this yr’s shock irruption is a present to not be squandered.