Nathan Nye asks:

>Does anybody have any thoughts on the effects of the el Nino on the numbers
>of southward-wandering Snowy Owls this winter? Would there be any effects at
>all?

I'm not sure about an El Nino connection, but I'm wondering what sort of
breeding year lemming specialists such as Snowy Owls, jaegers, etc., had
in the western Arctic this year. Does anybody know? After last winter's
mass exodus of Snowies, this suggests that we are now at the bottom of
the lemming cycle and just beginning to rebuild.

Terry Wahl, with his Westport trips, and others, have commented about how
few jaegers have been seen in western Washington so far this
post-breeding period. Could this have been a poor breeding year for
them, perhaps connected to low lemming numbers, which also led to last
year's Snowy Owl exodus?

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim