Snowy owls bask in Vermont winter
Winter 2017-18 has seen a significant influx, or “irruption” of snowy owls in Vermont — although it falls short of the phenomenal 2013-14 southbound surge of “snowys,” researchers say. (Colchester images courtesy of Caroline Gambell)
It’s getting easier to spot snowy owls in Vermont this winter — and that’s not always a good thing, scientists say.
Improved tracking methods show a surge of the Arctic visitors in the Champlain Valley. Owl-lovers, in consequence, have swarmed to view the striking white birds.
“Enjoy them, but don’t over-enjoy them,” cautioned Kent McFarland, a conservation biologist at Norwich-based Vermont Center for Ecostudies.
Snowies, as they’re affectionally known, are seemingly tolerant of human admirers. Getting too close, McFarland said, prompts them to take wing — too often into the path of motorized traffic or mobs of territorial crows.
“They’re from the Arctic. They don’t know humans, and how dangerous humans can be,” he continued. “If you see them getting antsy, you need to back off.”
Consider yourself lucky if you spot one, McFarland said: “They’re hard to see, you know. They’re white-on-white.”
Scientists working on the multi-state snowy owl tracking site ProjectSnowStorm.org offer a detailed explanation of “Owl Etiquette” for humans.
“Keep your distance” is the first rule of thumb.
Data from the project, collected from snowies wearing transmitters, indicate the owls are primarily nocturnal.
If a snowy owl is flying during the day, it is probably “responding to pressure and harassment, even if it’s not immediately evident to observers,” according to the project website.
This winter’s uptick in human-Arctic owl interactions can be traced to lemming populations in the birds’ home habitat, most scientists agree.
Every four or five years, an abundance of lemmings results in a corresponding abundance of healthy fledgling owls, experts say. As that generation of owls mature and compete for territory, their elders drive them away.
The result: an “irruption” of snowies to points south — sometimes as far south as Texas and Florida.
This year’s irruption was large by local standards, McFarland said, and its progress (and the progress of previous years’ irruptions) can be tracked online on a mapped database that McFarland helped create: Vermont eBird.
The site offers a caveat: Some birders wait several days before posting the presence of sensitive species like owls — in order to foil over-assertive human observers, and grant the birds a chance to hunt and roost undisturbed.
McFarland estimates that nine to eleven snowies have taken up winter residence eastern Addison County — Vermont’s densest concentration.
“For us, that’s a lot,” McFarland said. “Usually they’re more nomadic; passing through on the way to the Atlantic coast.”
Addison County’s extensive wetlands seems to suit the snowies because the terrain mimics that of the “tundra-like expanses” of their home turf, said Mark LaBarr, conservation program manager at Huntington-based Audubon Vermont.
Like McFarland, LaBarr is hesitant to compare this winter’s irruption to the epic influx of 2013-14.
Patient and considerate bird-watchers might have another several weeks to catch a glimpse of this ghostly owl.
“Right now they’re taking advantage of vacationland in Vermont,” LaBarr said. “It probably won’t be long before the snowies head back north.
The month of March, he added, is “a turning point” for birds in Vermont — the region is already starting to host early spring species like blackbirds, turkey vultures and grackles.
Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @VTgoingUp.