Calling all birdwatchers: Rare snowy owl ‘irruption’ grips Toronto

Bird watchers — solid your binoculars.

A singular snowy owl advance is retaining Toronto for a initial time given 2013. 

“It’s not any year we get a healthy race of snowy owls,” pronounced Lee Earl, module dilettante for Don River Valley Park. 

Earl leads “owl prowls” in a east-end park and says bird watchers are spotting “snowies” in huge numbers this winter.

“It’s a unequivocally sparkling time of year when we get to see these visitors,” she said. 

The remarkable race bang and southern emigration of snowy owls in record numbers is called an “irruption,” says Karen McDonald, manager of replacement projects for a Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. 

She explains irruptions are a “very unpredictable” materialisation and mostly align with booms in prey.    

“We don’t entirely know since snowy owls irupt year-over-year, though some-more information is indicating to a fact that food contentment formula in incomparable purchase sizes,” McDonald said, observant that snowy owls typically lay 3 or 4 eggs, though this past tact deteriorate nests contained 8 or 9 eggs. 

‘Snowies’ are one of a largest owls. They have a wing camber between 125 and 150 centimetres. (Submitted by Ramin Izadpanah)

The largest advance of snowy owls ever available in southern Ontario happened five years ago. 

During this winter, a rapacious bird was even seen as distant south as Florida and a Caribbean Islands. “This is flattering unusual,” McDonald said.  

• Snowy owl ‘epidemic’ sweeps opposite Ontario

• Snowy owls flocking over south in Canada, U.S.

Similar numbers are approaching this year, according to Kevin Kerr, curator of birds and invertebrates during a Toronto Zoo. 

“We see them down here, serve south, in tiny numbers any year, though any few years, in an irruption year, we see good numbers of them display adult … infrequently good over their normal range,” Kerr told CBC Toronto, adding this typically happens any 4 to 5 years.  

He explains Toronto is a “fairly healthy interlude point” for snowy owls looking for new domain to hunt since it’s during “the southern finish of their normal range.”

One of a largest class of owl

Snowy owls typically import between 1.6 to 3 kilograms and are one of a largest class of owl.

They live in northern Canada during a summer where they feed on lemmings, a mouse-like rodent found in Arctic regions. 

Lemmings have a “cyclical population,” definition their numbers “will spike and afterwards crash,” says McDonald, and biologists trust this has a approach impact on a race of snowy owls. 

Snowy owls feed on lemmings in a north. The tiny rodent is influenced by meridian change since augmenting freeze-thaw cycles in a tumble deteriorate meant it can’t get to seeds or roots buried by ice. (Submitted by Mathilde Poirier)

The northern bird heads south in hunt of food during a winter months — between late Oct and early March. 

“The suspicion is that these animals are substantially starving adult on their normal tact drift and so they’d conduct down serve south looking for food,” pronounced Kerr, observant this typically consists of tiny rodents or waterfowl in a area of a Great Lakes.  

Where to see snowy owls

Don’t demeanour for these owls in a forest, says Kerr — they hang to tundra-like areas in a city, such as vast fields or airports, where there are lots of rodents they can feast on.  

“It competence demeanour like a winter wonderland,” he said. 

“If you’re a snowy owl you’re looking for something that feels like home. Think prosaic turf or a hilly coastline.”

Bird watchers can spot them in places like Tommy Thompson Park, Don River Valley Park, Downsview Park and Pearson International Airport. 

The best places to mark this caller are in vast open spaces where they can simply hunt rodents. (Eric Foss/CBC)

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/snowy-owl-irruption-in-toronto-1.4528657?cmp=rss