Coastal Restoration

Snowy owls are among the largest birds in North America, but scientists know very little about their behavior. The owls spend most of their days far from humans, hunting rodents and birds in the flat expanses of the Arctic Circle. In the winter, the owls move south, but they don't usually reach the United States. Most years, only a few are spotted in the northernmost states — a rare treat for birders. But this winter was different. Owls started to appear all over the United States right around Thanksgiving — in Nebraska, in Kentucky — even as far south as Georgia. , a biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, was shocked when he saw not one but two snowy owls on a small stretch of Maryland beach. "Something huge is going on," Brinker told his colleagues. "We won't see something like this for a long time — probably for the rest of our lifetimes." This rapid population boom — called an "irruption" by ecologists — is the largest the East Coast has seen in 40 or 50 years.  …. Thanks to the abundance of lemmings last summer, well-fed mother owls laid more eggs, and huge numbers of owlets grew up fat and strong. Come winter, they spread far to the south. This irruption has provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for owl researchers — the chance to tag and track members of a mysterious species.Brinker says that following the movements of a few snowy owls will give scientists unprecedented information — about their routes through Canada and around the Arctic Circle, about their hunting patterns, and about the human-made hazards they face. That new understanding, in turn, will help the scientists better protect the owls.