-
Dec 8, 2007 5:18 pm US/Central
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
When Great Gray Owls Of Canada Invaded Minnesota
(WCCO)
Most people think about bird watching in warmer weather but it's true that winter can be a time to see different kinds of birds.
Take two years ago for example when Minnesota experienced what was called a boreal owl invasion. There was a shortage of food for the owls that make their homes in the northern boreal forests of Canada so the owls traveled here in numbers never seen before.
The wide-eyed visitors seem to be looking straight through you. A "piercing" yellow gaze focused on food and it's a basic necessity the Great Gray Owls are terribly short of.
"This is unprecedented. There's never been anything like this in the recorded history of birds in the United States," said Sharon Stiteler of the All Season's Wild Bird Store.
The Great Gray Owls' slow, silent flight is amazing to watch, and one rarely seen anywhere in the lower 48 states. These largest of all owls seldom leave their native Canada; that was until fall of 2004 when nature's cupboard went bare.
"Well, every 10 years there's a crash in the lemming population up in Canada. And it's usually, very localized. So every 10 years, certain states will get maybe 35 Great Gray Owls," said Stiteler.
Back in 2005, avid bird watchers like Stiteler were spotting 40 to 50 owls in a single day just north of Duluth, Minn. Statewide, nearly 2,000 were being recorded, some as far south as the Twin Cities.
"We're from Waconia, Minnesota, so we came up just today to look through here. We were going over to the North Shore and they said this is a better area right now," said one bird watcher.
The owl "invasion" created an invasion of tourists too. Birders from around the United States and the world were flocking to Minnesota with binoculars and cameras in hand. Atop power poles and along rural roads they could easily find what they were looking for.
"This is a very well recorded influx and so I think people are seeing numbers that they've never seen before," said Joel Greenberg, who drove a group up from Chicago. They were wired with cell phones and the Internet to communicate with other birders on the latest sightings.
"In fact, we have a message but we haven't been in an area where we could retrieve it. Out in the bogs there just aren't many cell phone towers. It's a new high-tech, high-tech bird watching," said Greenberg.
It was nothing short of amazing at just how easy it was to get an up close look at these rare and wonderful birds because they're from a part of Canada where humans which are rare. They don't seem to mind this sudden celebrity, but that disinterest is also one of the owls' greatest dangers.
"They get so focused on a mouse; if they fly across the road they don't understand the big metal thing isn't going to stop for 'em," said Stiteler.
At a quaint diner in Cotton, Minn., where birders from around the world gather, there was an unexpected sight: An injured owl brought in with a broken wing.
"Yeah, this wing's really in bad shape. He was right on the side of the road where he was hit," said Chris Neri, a Philadelphia field biologist.
"Yeah, I mean he's probably in shock first of all; and if it's any type of an impact injury they're pretty stunned," said tour guide Amber Burnette.
For the injured owl, it means a trip to the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota to see if doctors there can save it.
That owl was one of five brought in on just one day. However, when the owl invasion began in fall of 2004, the Raptor staff has treated more than 65 Great Grays.
Sadly, the news on this owl is not good.
"The skin was torn from shoulder down to the elbow and the bone just dried out. And where we could do nothing for him at that point," said Veterinarian Hugo Lopez. Yet, for a handful of the lucky ones he's able to work his medical magic. Those Great Grays will be released to hunt another day.
Some of these Great Gray Owls from two years ago may have stayed and made northern Minnesota their home but because of global warming it's rare to glimpse these animals so far south again.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)