Late in December, a birder reported seeing three snowy owls at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. This was exciting, because it's a rare treat to spot one of these spectacular white owls. And such sightings inevitably make the birding community hungry for more — for a winter when many snowy owls show up in our state (more about that later).
Snowies are well-named, with striking white plumage that blends well with snowy backgrounds. Because they hatch and spend much of their lives in the Arctic, they're not daunted by cold or wind-swept landscapes. In the Arctic they hunt for lemmings, but when far from home they survive on mice, rats and rabbits, as well as birds and ducks, sometimes even a great blue heron. Once they're on the move they often settle at Arctic-looking places, such as airports and open fields.
These big owls measure about 24 inches from their heavily feathered feet to the tops of their big, round heads. The ones in our area left the tundra late last fall, migrating southward to spend the winter, with early reports coming from the shores of Lake Michigan in November.
While a few snowy owls are reported in Minnesota most winters, birdwatchers always hope that each year will be an "irruption winter," when a flood of snowies appears in our region. This doesn't happen often, but some are already predicting that this will be one of those winters.
Despite their affinity for airports, these can be dangerous places, both for the birds and for aircraft, if an owl collides with a plane. No one knows this better than Norman Smith, who has spent 40 years capturing and relocating the snowy owls that settle in at Boston's Logan International Airport each winter. As the director of a major Massachusetts Audubon nature sanctuary, he helped develop a system for trapping and banding the owls and then releasing them, a feat that requires many federal and state permits.
"In an average winter, I relocate 15 to 20 owls," Smith says, "but the big year, 2013, I relocated 121 owls from Logan." He captures and takes the owls either to coastal salt marshes or to areas north of the airport, both good hunting grounds. Smith, who has relocated 20 owls so far this winter, adding to his total of 900 owls banded over 40 years, has retired from his day job.
At our own international airport, the staff first uses noise-makers and fireworks-like bursts to try to drive the owls away. If these don't do the job, the owls are captured and relocated.
The big question is why do snowy owls irrupt, flooding southward in some years, occasionally appearing as far south as Florida? The theory used to be that snowy owl irruptions were driven by a scarcity of Arctic lemmings, the owls' dietary staple. This was partly based on the experience of rehabilitation centers, which admitted many starving snowy owls in irruption years.
