A couple who live south of Powell River were thrilled to see a snowy owl in their yard recently.
Maryann and Larry Johnston live on Stager Road. A snowy owl spent about two hours in their yard, said Maryann. “It was quite amazing to see the bird in this area,” she said. “He was quite alert, looking all around. Then he just flew off.”
Snowy owls (Nyctea scandiaca) nest in the Arctic tundra of the northernmost stretches of Alaska, Canada and Eurasia. This is the second consecutive winter that the birds have migrated en masse far south of their summer habitat in the north.
Maj Birch, founder and manager of Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society (MARS) in Courtenay, said generally the birds that are showing up in coastal areas are this year’s young, meaning they hatched in the spring. Standing up to 61 centimetres, males can weigh 1.8 kilograms, while females can top 2.3 kilograms on the scales. Their wing span is about 1.5 metres.
There are a few reasons why the large predators come down from the north, Birch said. One reason is the collapse of the lemming population, which results in not enough food for them. “These birds are hungry when they leave the Arctic,” she said.
When there is an abundance of lemmings, Birch explained, parents can feed more babies and more babies survive. “Then there are too many snowy owls for the environment to support up there,” she said. “Then they move south looking for food.”
When the birds arrive on the west coast, they’re in a foreign environment, Birch said. “We have trees and there are no trees in the Arctic,” she said. “They tend to look for places like beaches, airport runways, wide open fields.”
While they hunt mostly lemmings, snowy owls are known to hunt hares, ptarmigan and small rodents, Birch said, but much of this type of prey is not easily recognizable and doesn’t live in this area. “These young birds are also inexperienced hunters,” she said. “For every mouse that they get, they probably tried 10 times to catch something.”
Each time they try to catch something and fail, they’re expending energy they can ill afford, Birch said. “Underneath all the beautiful white feathers is basically a bone rack,” she said. “There’s no muscle or meat left on their body and they’re basically starving to death.”
The centre has had six snowy owls so far since about the end of October and only one has survived, Birch said.
Birch suggested that people should just observe the birds and try not to cause them to fly. “That’s going to make them burn some more energy,” she said. “A lot of people are wanting to take photographs of them, but they get too close and the birds fly away. It burns their energy and they get weakened even more.”
Signs that the birds are not well include closed or squinty eyes, Birch said, or dirty wingtips and tail feathers. “The fact that they’re staying still, not trying to fly away when you approach, is another indication that they can be very ill,” she said.
The birds have come a long way to get here, Birch said, and she hopes that some of them survive to fly back.
More information about MARS is available on its website.
