Unusual visitors from the north
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- December 28, 2021
- 801
The snowy owl, seen here on an early evening hunt in Wayne County, is typically a resident of more northern latitudes. Changes in food availability and population can trigger large seasonal movements of the birds into areas less common to their range, and this bird, photographed in 2013, was part of an exceptionally large movement, or irruption, which resulted in sightings as far south as Bermuda.
It was mid-January nearly a decade ago, and another cold, gloomy, overcast weekend had me pacing my kitchen like a caged leopard. Daylight is in notoriously short supply at that time of year, and the clouds that muffled the few short hours we’d been given had me wondering what I’d done to deserve such punishment.
There are two courses of action when such restlessness sets in: stay inside and wallow in your own misery or gear up and head out into the gloom and work to make something of the day. I layered on my bicycle clothes, checked the direction of the wind and pedaled off straight into it.
One of my favorite strategies for riding in crappy weather is to ride into the wind on the way out. In doing so, you just might be able to enjoy a tailwind on the way home. This doesn’t always work, of course. The winds of winter tend to be fickle — and sometimes even downright vengeful. I’ve had more than one stiff headwind turn on me at just the moment I’d planned to swing for home, slapping me in the face as if to say, “What do you think you’re doing out here anyway? I thought I told you to stay inside!”
Those double-headwind days have made for some long, ugly trips, but any day on a bicycle is better than a day inside. More often than not, I’m rewarded with some little nugget of joy that makes the whole thing seem worthwhile. That was exactly the case on this particular day as I pedaled south from Orrville, following Kansas Road into the heart of Amish Country.
The ride out was uneventful, but on the trip back, I encountered several buggies stopped alongside the road ahead and a cluster of folks standing nearby. As I drew closer, the three-legged tell of a tripod came into view. While at first I thought they must be taking turns catching the spotting scope magnified version of some tiny and obscure songbird, I learned quickly otherwise when I spied the football-sized white bird perched calmly on a deadfall snag no more than 50 yards from the edge of the well-traveled county road. It was the first snowy owl I had ever seen.
I stopped to marvel alongside the others and pulled out my aging flip phone to grab a few grainy photos to prove to the folks at home and to myself that this had actually happened and I wasn’t merely hallucinating from cold and exhaustion. I rode off lest I catch a chill, but the impact of the moment was deep and permanent. I had seen a bird I’d only dreamed about, and it was one that everyone — birders and nonbirders alike — could get excited about.
The above scene played out during what is now sometimes referred to as “the great snowy owl irruption of 2013 and 2014.” An irruption is an unusually large migratory movement of birds into an area where they are not typically seen, and this one was of such magnitude that scientists regarded it as a “mega-irruption” — a once in a lifetime event.
In hindsight it may have been more of a bellwether than an anomaly as significant irruptions have occurred more and more frequently in the years since and may likely be a response to the rapid warming of the Arctic region.
While scientists don’t fully understand what drives these events, one common misconception is the birds are being forced south entirely by hunger. While food gathering plays a huge role in any animal’s day-to-day actions, the more likely truth behind the large irruptions of snowy owls is they are evidence of exceptionally successful seasons on their breeding grounds on the Arctic tundra. That success is a direct response to the availability of the snowy owl’s favorite food, the lemming.
A hamster-sized rodent, the Arctic lemming can produce a litter of six young every 20 days when conditions are prime during the Arctic summer. As an herbivore, the creature flourishes on the young shoots of grasses and sedges and survives the winter on the fast-frozen version of the same. A warming world means, in the short term, perfect conditions for lemming production, and the math is simple — more lemmings mean more owls. This relationship has its limits, however, and I’ll discuss those dynamics more in an upcoming column. Until then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Remember, if you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.