Want to see a snowy owl? This could be your winter | CBC News

Science A snowy owl rests on a pier near Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary late last month in Chicago. More young snowy owls have been reported earlier than usual in southern Canada and the northern U.S., prompting suggestions that it may be an 'irruption' year for the birds.(Erin Hooley/The Associated Press) Snowy owls can often be found in winter in agricultural fields and in coastal areas in southern Canada and the northern U.S.(Jean Hall/Project SNOWstorm) Snowy owls raise chicks like this one in Arctic nests. They produce more chicks when lemmings are abundant.(Submitted by Nicolas Lecomte) This map shows the tracks of snowy owls tagged by Project SNOWstorm as they travelled to the Arctic in summer, and southern Canada and the northern U.S. in winter between 2013 and 2024.(Project SNOWstorm) Ontario raptor specialists Charlotte England and Malcolm Wilson put a GPS tag on a snowy owl named Newton for Project SNOWstorm.(Maria Mak/Project SNOWstorm) A snowy owl in flight(Nicolas Lecomte) Want to see a snowy owl? This could be your winter Animal rescues say they're seeing more young birds earlier than usual, suggesting an 'irruption' This could be an unusually good year to spot snowy owls in southern Canada. This past weekend, the The Owl Foundation, an owl rehabilitation centre based in Ontario's Niagara region, reported in a Facebook post that it had already admitted two young snowy owls so far this year, suggesting that it's "shaping up to be a snowy owl irruption year!" An irruption is a surge in the local population of a species, for example, an unusual number of snowy owls coming south from the Arctic. So far this year, more young snowy owls have been reported earlier than usual in southern Canada and the northern U.S., and researchers say this it might mean an opportunity to see a relatively rare visitor from the North that was recently labelled threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Brian Hayhoe, a wildlife biologist and rehabilitator at The Owl Foundation, wrote the post. He says in the past few winters, the centre has received zero to two snowy owls each year, often not until December or January. He's heard from other wildlife centres in other parts of Ontario that are also reporting higher numbers earlier than usual, and said they're often the first to notice trends like this: "Rehabbers are kind of like the canary in the coal mine." Meanwhile, two snowy owls have recently drawn crowds near Chicago , also prompting suggestions of an irruption year. Scott Weidensaul, a researcher involved with the snowy owl GPS tracking program Project SNOWstorm, says most southern snowy owl sightings so far have been in the central and western Great Lakes and in the Prairies. But there have been a few spotted as far west as B.C. , where they've rarely been seen in recent years. "Maybe it's going to shape up to be a decent year out there as well," Weidensaul said. What's behind a po ssible snowy...

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