Dear Birdchatters,

Here is the summary of all the postings I received for the Operation
Lemming initiative. We were interested primarily in the numbers of Snowy
Owls seen in the south this winter as there was a spectacular crash of
the Lemming populations in parts of the Canadian Arctic, I guess that there
are a lot of cliffs up there!

I had 27 replies througout the winter, and
these came from 12 states.

I will summarize from West to east (generally):

WASHINGTON- From the SW part of the state, it was reported that there was
no sign of an invasion. At leadbetter point where in the 84-85 invasion up
> to 8 SNOW could be seen, none were around this winter. I find this interesting
as Vancouver, BC and the Skagit area of NW Washington had a big year this
winter, with many birds that appeared to be adults. Perhaps they stopped at
that latitude and few kept going further south. Up to 22 (maybe more) could
be seen within a couple of hours of looking at Boundary Bay, in the Vancouver
are this winter.

OREGON- One was at the south jetty at the Columbia River,which is not too
unusual. One was seen in Linn County (in the south), apparently none had
been seen this far south since 1987. One bird was at Tillamook. In general,
> there were only a few records, but the species is quite rare here. The souther
nrecord implies that this year was different. Shrikes were reported to be
around in their usual numbers, it was a good year for Rough-legged Hawks,
but not a peak year.

ALASKA AND SIBERIA- July in Norilsk and the Taimyr Peninsula, NW Siberia
was average. Lemming levels seemed fine and the usual abundance of SNOW,
RLHA and the 3 Jaegers. NOthing unusual in Siberia.
IN August at the Brooks Range in Alaska Jaeger numbers were seen to be
expremely low, compared to other years. I assume this means Long-tailed
Jaeger. No info on Snowy Owls from the Brooks Range, but that is not their
preferred habitat in any case.

COLORADO- 2 Snowy Owls reported. One observer put this into perspective by
mentioning that since 1985 there have only been 3-4 records in the state,
therefore two in one winter is and invasion by Colorado standards. RLHA
numbers were average, but they arrived early. Northern Shrikes were reported
to be high this winter with a lot of juveniles.

NEBRASKA- At least 5 reported to me, the earliest on Nov. 20. No idea if
this is unusual or not, I expect that these numbers are higher than usual
for that state.

MINNESOTA- This was a hotspot. I only had three reports, but these were
quite informative. The first Snowy Owls were seen on the 10th of October,
which is quite early. An immature was spotted in the morning of the 10th
in Duluth, and 2-3 others were found at other sites later on that same day.
Between Oct. 17 and Jan. 21, 26 Snowies were admitted to the rehabilitation
ward of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. All except 4
were hatch year males, the other four were hatch year females.
Don Henise sent in a most interesting account of a Snowy trying to catch
some food: "Parker (Parker Backstrom) told a story in that letter of a
young snowy that a friend of his observed. The owl flew out onto Lake
Superior and attacked and apparently killed a Common Merganser, but could
not carry the bird back to shore. After a long struggle it dropped the prey
and flapped and swam its way back to the lake shore where it subsequently
died."

INDIANA- The first was reported from Oct. 30 and was seen to be very pale,
an adult? Up to five were reported before the end of December in Northwest
Indiana, the 12 year average is 2.4, so numbers were up.

NEW YORK- Three were reported between Nov. 7 and Nov. 26, which seems like
an average to slighlty above average number for that state.

PENNSYLVANIA- One was near Shippenburg in February, where the species is
rare.

MASSACHUSETTS- One record from that state.

General conclusions: The Snowy Owl invasion appears to have been largely
confined to the west and the midwest with the highest numbers coming from
Vancouver, BC and parts of Minnesota. The numbers in the east of the conti-
nent were not high, but I received few reports. There may have been a
correlation with Rough-legged Hawks coming in early in some areas and higher
munbers of Shrikes, but the patterns are not clear.

I will be leaving for Ecuador tomorrow to do some field work so if anyone
has anything to add or any comments to make please address them to Chris
Shank at cshank at gov.nt.ca .

Thanks to all of the people that sent reports to me, and to Chris.

Al Jaramillo
jaramill at sfu.ca
Vancouver, B.C.
(Operation Lemming- Pacific Northwest headquarters).