Albert
03-08-2005, 12:25 PM
hi cx,
i'm wundrin when your going to git up to visit todd, seein as he is bein overrun by owls?
today i wuz at john's house readin the newspaper in his poorcelain liberry (its diffrent frum the liberry on this website) and i read about all the owls in minnesota and wisconsin. maybe the yankee owls will all move to texas soon, juss like the peeple. check it out.
p.s. i neber heard of the wurd "irruption." i think they made it up.
albert
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/science/08owl.html?8hpib
In a Vast Hungry Wave, Owls Are Moving South
By E. VERNON LAUX
Published: March 8, 2005
Minnesota is being invaded. By owls. They started flying south in November and they have kept on coming. This is what ornithologists and birders call an irruption. And this one is of historic proportions.
"This invasion is unprecedented and we may not see anything like this again in our lifetime," said Dr. Mark Robbins, curator of birds at the University of Kansas, who traveled north with a group of graduate students to observe the owls.
Owls that normally live in the boreal forest, the spruce belt that ranges across the top of the Northern Hemisphere, have been driven south by a crash in the population of rodents, in particular the red-backed and meadow voles, the favorite food of the great gray owl.
The great gray owls have led the movement. More than 2,000 of them, along with 200 hawk owls and 300 boreal owls are being reported. This compares with last year's more typical numbers of 35 great gray owls, 6 northern hawk owls and 1 boreal owl.
Dr. James Duncan, a rodent and owl expert in Winnipeg, Manitoba, has been studying vole populations since 1986. He has reported that the vole population at his study sites in summer and fall of 2004 was the lowest since 1992. Vole populations fluctuate according to weather conditions, Dr. Duncan said. Cold, wet weather is bad for their food supply and bad for the voles.
The owls are not only in Minnesota. They have been moving into northern Wisconsin and, in smaller numbers, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
In southern Ontario, there are now hundreds of great gray owls. During the annual Audubon Society Christmas bird count in New York City, conducted last year on Dec. 19, a boreal owl was seen in Central Park for the first time since records of sightings have been kept.
The owl was found on the west side of Central Park near Tavern on the Green.
As the owls are following the rodents, birders are following the owls. The incursion of these birds into Minnesota has brought birders from both coasts and from other countries.
Among them, Dr. Robbins and a group of his graduate students looked for birds one day from dawn to dusk. They found at least 226 great gray owls.
The irruption provides many opportunities for birders and scientists, but the owls are encountering some problems.
They are low-flying hunters, and the birds from the far north have little experience with automobiles. While hunting, they have been colliding with vehicles.
"Nearly 500 birds have been found dead," Dr. Robbins said. "The vast majority have been hit by cars. All these specimens are being preserved in various museums and a great deal of information will be learned from this unfortunate situation."
"For example," he said, "ornithologists will be using stable isotopes from the feathers of the specimens to determine their geographic origins as well as determining sex ratio and age."
Some survivors are being nurtured back to health at the University of Minnesota's raptor center.
i'm wundrin when your going to git up to visit todd, seein as he is bein overrun by owls?
today i wuz at john's house readin the newspaper in his poorcelain liberry (its diffrent frum the liberry on this website) and i read about all the owls in minnesota and wisconsin. maybe the yankee owls will all move to texas soon, juss like the peeple. check it out.
p.s. i neber heard of the wurd "irruption." i think they made it up.
albert
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/science/08owl.html?8hpib
In a Vast Hungry Wave, Owls Are Moving South
By E. VERNON LAUX
Published: March 8, 2005
Minnesota is being invaded. By owls. They started flying south in November and they have kept on coming. This is what ornithologists and birders call an irruption. And this one is of historic proportions.
"This invasion is unprecedented and we may not see anything like this again in our lifetime," said Dr. Mark Robbins, curator of birds at the University of Kansas, who traveled north with a group of graduate students to observe the owls.
Owls that normally live in the boreal forest, the spruce belt that ranges across the top of the Northern Hemisphere, have been driven south by a crash in the population of rodents, in particular the red-backed and meadow voles, the favorite food of the great gray owl.
The great gray owls have led the movement. More than 2,000 of them, along with 200 hawk owls and 300 boreal owls are being reported. This compares with last year's more typical numbers of 35 great gray owls, 6 northern hawk owls and 1 boreal owl.
Dr. James Duncan, a rodent and owl expert in Winnipeg, Manitoba, has been studying vole populations since 1986. He has reported that the vole population at his study sites in summer and fall of 2004 was the lowest since 1992. Vole populations fluctuate according to weather conditions, Dr. Duncan said. Cold, wet weather is bad for their food supply and bad for the voles.
The owls are not only in Minnesota. They have been moving into northern Wisconsin and, in smaller numbers, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
In southern Ontario, there are now hundreds of great gray owls. During the annual Audubon Society Christmas bird count in New York City, conducted last year on Dec. 19, a boreal owl was seen in Central Park for the first time since records of sightings have been kept.
The owl was found on the west side of Central Park near Tavern on the Green.
As the owls are following the rodents, birders are following the owls. The incursion of these birds into Minnesota has brought birders from both coasts and from other countries.
Among them, Dr. Robbins and a group of his graduate students looked for birds one day from dawn to dusk. They found at least 226 great gray owls.
The irruption provides many opportunities for birders and scientists, but the owls are encountering some problems.
They are low-flying hunters, and the birds from the far north have little experience with automobiles. While hunting, they have been colliding with vehicles.
"Nearly 500 birds have been found dead," Dr. Robbins said. "The vast majority have been hit by cars. All these specimens are being preserved in various museums and a great deal of information will be learned from this unfortunate situation."
"For example," he said, "ornithologists will be using stable isotopes from the feathers of the specimens to determine their geographic origins as well as determining sex ratio and age."
Some survivors are being nurtured back to health at the University of Minnesota's raptor center.