With a surprising number of young Snowy Owls arriving in open country in southern Canada and the Great Lakes states, it looks like birders will have a good chance of finding this impressive species this winter (photo by Paul Konrad).

In late October, which is unusually early, young Snowy Owls started showing up in rapidly increasing numbers from the western prairies of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to the Maritime Provinces in Canada, and especially in the western Great Lakes around southern Ontario, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin according to this week’s Project Snowstorm alert. A few Snowy Owls have even been reported in British Columbia and Washington state where Snowys have been scarce to absent in recent years, and the early surge in sightings has intensified during the past couple of weeks.

More and more Snowy Owl sightings are being reported daily on eBird according to Project Snowstorm, and while pointing out that eBird sightings don’t necessarily reflect the full sweep of where all the Snowys are, it’s a good indicator of what’s happening across the continent. Snowys are already being reported in many regular hotspots, and outliers have appeared as far south as Long Island in New York, eastern Iowa, and northwest Ohio.

Years when significant numbers of Snowy Owls move this far south are almost always the result of good reproduction the previous summer according to Project Snowstorm. And it seems as though almost all the Snowys that have been observed are young of the year, which is what researchers expect during a year when many Snowy Owls arrive in southern Canada and northern states.

Well known for their impressive research study tracking the movements of Snowy Owls using GPS-based transmitters, Project Snowstorm associates will be deploying transmitters on Snowy Owls again this winter, and they’re scrambling a bit to get into the field earlier than expected. As for previously tagged owls, none have re-appeared south of their Arctic summer range to date, but older owls tend to follow the initial surge of first-fall Snowys. When the tagged owls move into cell tower range, their transmitters will download the locations where they spent their time from early spring to fall, which will yield some more fascinating behavior and movement information. Throughout the winter, Project Snowstorm also provides regular updates on transmitter-tagged owls.

Recent years have not produced significant numbers of Snowy Owls south of the Arctic, and there were no indications that this was a productive year for nesting Snowy Owls, so the news provided by Project Snowstorm is exciting. This could be the winter that many birders have been looking forward to as early sightings indicate a good chance of seeing Snowy Owls with this early indication of things to come. You can keep informed throughout the season and learn more about Snowy Owls if you sign up for the free Project Snowstorm newsletter at In With a Bang - Project SNOWstorm