Snowy Owls Soar South From Arctic In Rare Mass Migration

Snowy Owls Soar South From Arctic In Rare Mass Migration: Bird watchers are reporting increasing numbers of snowy owls in the Arctic flights in 48 states this winter in a mass migration from the south, leading researcher of the owl is called “incredible.”

Thousands of white snow birds, which stand two feet tall with a wingspan of 5 feet, located from coast to coast, feeding on agricultural land in Idaho, to perch on roofs in Montana, slips on a golf course in Missouri and soaring over the coast of Massachusetts .
A number of iconic owls fly south from their breeding grounds in the Arctic every winter, but rarely more risk so far, even in the midst of large-scale migration to the south known as periodic eruptions.

“What we see now – it’s unbelievable,” said Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

“This is the most significant event in the wild for decades,” said Holt, who has studied the snowy owls in their Arctic tundra ecosystems over two decades.

Holt and experts from other owls that this phenomenon is probably due to the lemming, a rodent, which represents 90 percent of the diet of snow owls during the breeding month extension from May to September. Nocturnal birds of prey, as well as many other animals, voles for geese.
Abundance of lemmings especially last season, probably led to the population boom among the owls, which led to the outbreak of each breeding pair as many as seven children. This compares with a typical size of adhesion of the two, Holt said.Grand this year’s competition for food in the North by the growth of the population of birds is possible, mainly young, male owl much farther south than usual.
Studies in animals are rare because of the remoteness and extreme owls occupy the land, including Northern Russia and Scandinavia, he said.

The sharp increase in snowy owl observations have led ornithologists flock in Texas, Arizona and Utah in Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, pouring tourism dollars into the local economy and crowded park and reserves. The outbreak caused widespread public interest, which appears to encompass the ages and interests.

“Over the past couple of months, every visitor, if we have seen other miracles snowy owl today,” said Frances Tanaka, voluntarily Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge north of Olympia, Washington.

But accounts of the owl spent on some sites – including the hungry eat the bird fell dead in a farmer in Wisconsin – suggest that migration has a dark side. Holt said, and an owl that landed at the airport in Hawaii in November, was shot to avoid a collision with the aircraft.
He said the snowy owl populations are considered as an overall decline, probably due to climate change has reduced the abundance of vegetation such as grasses, which rely on lemmings.

Epidemic this winter, snowy owl, with a lot of speeches as far south as Oklahoma, remains largely a mystery of nature.