Lack of lemmings drives snowy owls to Connecticut
Published 4:18 pm, Saturday, December 7, 2013
MILFORD -- If you happen to catch a glimpse of a large, white owl, it's not carrying your matriculation papers for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
What it is, according to the Connecticut Audubon Society, is a snowy owl. Although they rarely visit these parts, they've been seen in numbers in the state over the past few weeks.
Does this mean we're in for a winter that'll be, well, snowy? No, according to the experts.
"What's going on is that their normal food source -- lemmings in the Arctic tundra -- is probably scarce this year," said Milan Bull, Connecticut Audubon's senior director of science and conservation.
It's called an "irruption" -- when a group of birds temporarily move into an area where they're not usually seen.
More InformationThe Snowy Owl
Scientific name: Bubo scandiacus
Summer habitat: Canada, mostly north of the Arctic Circle, north of Hudson Bay
Winter habitat: Southern Canada, extreme northern U.S. Prefers dunes and open fields, avoids forests.
Appearance: One of the largest and the heaviest of the owls. Males are mostly white; female have more of a salt-and-pepper look. Distinctive yellow eyes.
Often confused with: The barn owl, which has black eyes, a heart-shaped white face, white underside, and brown head and wings.
Preferred food: Lemmings, other small-to-medium-sized rodents. Known to hunt rabbits, fish and birds.
Reproduction: Takes place in the arctic tundra. Females lay clutch of 3-11 eggs in a ground nest; one brood per year. Hatchlings are described as little balls of downy fluff.
Source: Cornell Lab
"If you've ever wanted to see a snowy owl, this is the year to do it," Bull said. "We almost always get a snowy owl or two in Connecticut, but this is a particularly good year for us. We've seen them in Essex, Bridgeport, Long Beach (Stratford), Short Beach (Stratford), Milford Point and Meigs Point (Hammonasset State Park).
Experts note that populations of lemmings, as with many other small animals, are prone to crashing every so often, stressing the larger animals that feed on them. Although the snowy owl isn't known for migrating long distances, it can easily travel from the Hudson Bay regions to New England.
Still, if you see one, Bull says to keep your distance.
"It's safe to say that if they're here, they're under stress," he said. "They've come a long way, they're hungry and they're in an unfamiliar place."
So if you're looking for one, bring your binoculars because they're easily disturbed. Photographers will need a long telephoto lens.
He said that since they're used to the wide-open tundra, they'll tend to stay out on the beaches, dunes or other wide open, moorland-type areas. They don't usually perch in trees.
"We know that they were coming," Bull said. "There were reports of them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, so we had out fingers crossed."
In normal years, the ones that are in Connecticut now would be up in Labrador, Newfoundland, northern Quebec and northern Ontario.
They have been spotted in past years as far south as Tennessee and Oklahoma, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y.
"We even had an unconfirmed report of one in Hawaii," Bull said, adding that if one indeed made it there, it most likely was brought there by humans.
One place to see Snowy Owls is at the CAS Milford Point Coastal Center, at 1 Milford Point Road. There's an observation tower at the Coastal Center building; another viewing spot is on the jetty near the mouth of the Housatonic River. A third spot is the observation platform on beach at the Milford center facing Long Island Sound beach.
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